Unforgiven 1992

Unforgiven could have been much better, but Clint Eastwood took some liberties that took away from what this film could have been.

First, he cast himself as the lead. His acting is so unemotional and dry when he's showing his emotional depth that it completely took me out of the movie. Honestly, I kept laughing every time he had an emotional scene. Everyone else was really great, but he was the lead, so it had a pretty big effect on the movie.

Second, his direction oozes cliches, not homages. His wide shots aren't beautiful, they are just wide. His choice is of lighting smacks you in the face with its evil vs evil theme. There's just no subtlety in any of his themes, which leads to my next point.

The pacing of the first two acts is way off. We all know the third act is going to happen exactly as we think it will. So when it does, it's cathartic, and fun to watch. However, the hints about the third act stretch on for way too long in the first 2 thirds of the movie.

The story is great, but Clint Eastwood's heavy-handed approach turns a great movie into a good one.

1 / 2 directing, technical aspect
2 / 2 story
1 / 1 acting
0 / 1 pacing
1 / 1 dialogue
1 / 1 living up to its genre
1 / 1 originality
0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think

-1 / 0 miscellaneous +/- point (for Clint's acting)

6 / 10

"It don't seem real... how he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever... how he's dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger."

Unforgiven is the essential Clint Eastwood movie right? If you had to pick one it would be Unforgiven to describe his career. It is: A) a Western, B) he starred in it and C) he directed it.

I think Clint Eastwood is one of the best Actor/Directors of all time. One that is great in either role and nothing is better then Clint Eastwood in a Western. Here in Unforgiven he is accompanied by legends Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. 3 Iconic actors in one movie. We even get Richard Harris as English Bob!

The movie is dark, never a bright moment in sight. The Whore-slashings are brutal. The way Little Bill (Hackman) runs his town alongside his crew is horrible.

Unforgiven flows along beautifully, looks amazing and the story is very strong. The action is solid and I love the final 15 minutes. Never a dull moment and the action is top notch. Unforgiven is a movie you can't miss out on and a must watch for everyone here over at Trakt!

Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman play two retired wild west bounty hunters, back in their saddles to chase one last payday after decades of silence. Agonizingly slow, its two leads take their sweet time collecting their belongings, mounting their horses and trotting at a leisurely pace across state lines, sharing less than a few sentences along the way. We gather that Eastwood was a shady character in his day, reformed by the love of a deceased wife, but he seems more like a caged animal than a redeemed spirit and we're never given much reason to pull for him despite the presumed change of heart. Though his beloved bride's spirit lives on in the couple's two young children, he barely acknowledges their presence before leaving them on their own for a month to randomly track down a new quarry.

Freeman tries to drag some character development out of him on the trail, but Eastwood holds onto it with an icy grip and piercing eyes, and there we sit for the rest of the picture. Gene Hackman is noteworthy for his portrayal of a smarmy, cocky town sheriff with a chip on his shoulder, but on every other count this is a western that misfires with each squeeze of the trigger.

Despite a few beautiful panoramas, the world feels stiflingly tight and compressed. Outside of Hackman, there's no fire and passion in the cast, even when Eastwood turns the page and transgresses to his wilder young persona. Finally, the atmosphere, crucial to all films of the genre, feels clean and polished where it should be gritty and dirty. Much as I would have loved to see Clint don that familiar parka and revisit the days of his Sergio Leon sunrise, it's just not happening here.

I really wanted to be blown away by this one; it had been so many years since I'd first watched this one I had forgotten pretty much everything about it. So when I watched it again, I was really expecting - and hoping - to be completely floored. I mean, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman....How can you go wrong? In spite of all the naysayers and haters, it wasn't Eastwood's direction or the so-called "cliches" (whatever that comment is supposed to mean? :rolling_eyes: ) that took the shine off for me; rather, it was the 2 hours of plodding story all crammed into one very-expected 10-minute conclusion. I remember gearing up for what I knew would be the "big scene" and literally thinking "What's going to happen after this? There's still a lot of movie left..." Sadly, I was mistaken: there WAS nothing left, and the "big scene" just happened, and then...roll credits. Huh? That's it? That's all there was?!! I had just sat through 2 hours of slow-moving old cowboys with a rambling dialogue and a tough-guy-wanna-be kid who, in spite of his blustering bravado, you knew had never pulled a trigger... And then poof! it all vanished in the final 10 minutes. The scenery was gorgeous, the storyline was good (but soooooooooo slow), and the acting was superb (to be expected), but dang if they didn't ruin it all by jamming EVERYTHING into the last couple minutes. I really wanted to love this Clint Eastwood classic western but I feel like it just fell flat with that abrupt ending. Sorry, Clint... I love you, pal, but this one just fell short.