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Rating:  - Bleak, unsparing, jarring, and brilliant...
When I first saw this film, I have to admit I thought it was good, but not great. Further viewings (including a recent one) have made me changed my mind and hang my head in shame. This is one of the greatest Westerns ever made, and one of Eastwood's crowning achievements as a filmmaker and as an actor.
The film is uncommonly dark, even for an Eastwood film. It starts off with a brutal rape scene, and ends with a shootout. The cinematography is masterful, arguably the best in any Eastwood film. Eastwood's character, Billy, is really trying to go straight after spending a lifetime of killing, whoring, and maiming. His wife is dead, his farm is failing, and he's worried about his children. He gets a chance to get some money, but he has to find and kill the people who raped and beat up(and got away with it) a prostitute at the beginning of the film. Over the course of the film, Eastwood's quest becomes more brutal and darker, concluding in what has to be the best, most brooding scene in all of Eastwood's work. The final scene takes place in the bar/brothel where the rape/assault took place. The scene starts in a wide shot, then you see Eastwood's rifle make an entrance, but it's only his rifle. It's a brilliant entrance, one of the greatest in Western movie history, and the concluding shootout is as menancing and as cruel as the West could be.
This film won Eastwood his first Oscar, and it's a film that deserved all its accolades. Most Best Picture Oscar winners are rather safe and tame films, but this is one of the exceptions where an uncommonly dark film swept the awards. It also rejuvinated Eastwood's career a bit. He had just directed and starred in The Rookie, a film that is considered his worst film by mostly everyone, including fans (for the record, it's not that bad of a film. Pink Cadillac is Clint's worst movie). The Rookie was a box office and critical bomb. So when this film appeared, it really brought Eastwood back, and he's been there ever since. Unforgiven is considered one of the greatest Westerns ever made, and deservedly so.
For the record, buy the 2 disc special edition DVD, not the single disc edition. The single disc edition (which is thankfully out of print) is a very poor edition, with an unremarkable, grainy transfer, no special features, and a bizarre scene selection menu that is impossible to navigate. The 2 disc edition has an excellent transfer of the film, several excellent documentaries, including one where we see Clint making his vastly underrated 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and an episode of Maverick with Clint in a supporting role.
Rating:  - Review from a first-time viewer...
Before I begin, I would like to give a disclaimer. Although I liked this film, I have only viewed it once and I am also I young man who has not seen many westerns. Therefore, it has not yet grown on me (as many previous reviewers have stated that it does) and also I have very little to compare this film to. With that said, on to the review...
My first impression of this film was that it was very well done. The plot of the film is thick and dark and has many parts, the main segment being the story of Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) and his companion Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). Munny is a retired assassin in from Kansas who has decided to live a life of rationality in tribute to his wife, raising two children and working (and failing) as a pig farmer. One day Munny is confronted by a young assassin-in-training known only as "The Schofield Kid" about going to Wyoming to kill two cowboys who slashed a prostitute (there is a $1,000 reward put up by the prostitutes). The film, in an extremely summarized version of the extremely dense storyline, is the story of Will Munny struggling to come to grips with his haunted past.
Although I enjoyed the suspense of the film very much, there were two aspects of the film that I didnt particularly enjoy. The first was the constant use of shadowed lighting which spread shadows across the face of nearly every character in the movie and which made the film extraordinarily difficult to concentrate on. While I understand this technique is used in emphasis of the darkness of the film, I still don't think it added anything to the emotions running within the movie. The second was the use of Richard Harris' character, "English Bob". I didn't understand how his portion of the storyline was relevant to the rest of the movie other than to allow for an excellent soliloquoy by Gene Hackman inside the town jail. There were many more portions of the film that I did appreciate very much, especially the youthful enthusiasm of the Schofield Kid, who beautifully contrasts Will's bleak denial of his true identity with yearning for adventure.
I will probably watch this film again at some point, but even after one view, I strongly reccommend it for its dark and brutal storyline and excellent acting performances. Watch it several times if you get the chance, and let the film mystique grow on you.
Rating:  - Stole my money
The only thing you will be wishing upon when you are done is where is my money and I wish I did something better on a friday night
Rating: - Unforgivin' is what you'll be
Unforgivin' is what you'll be if you don't see this Clint Eastwood movie. I think it's one of the best western movies ever made. Clint Eastwood is excellent but Gene Hackman should have won an award for his role as "Little Bill." You won't be disappointed.
Rating: - Prefection destroys the mould
The last western that can ever come to life on the silver screen. After it there will only be placebo westerns. The ultimate episode of the western wilderness just before it turned so sour that your blood would curdle in your veins and your brain would either calcify into a heartless stone or liquify into a tasteless brew. The solitary cowboy is the real judge and executioner, in one word that last fatal justice maker that represents the final fate of all crooked minds that meet with their destiny in front of the barrels of his guns just before he shoots them dead with no remission, no suspension, no parole, ever and never. Fatal lethal fateful fate of a big bang death of a few trashy men who thought their violence was god's law to all others. And God came down from his heaven in the shape of Clint Eastwood and he struck them dead with the flashes of lightning of his anger. Just before these hooligans learned that women had to be respected, that plain justice, fairness and humanity require strength, righteousness and forwardness. With only one star in sight guiding their steps, the star that leads to Bethlehem and the birth of a really humane world founded on the salvation of the innocent and the damnation of the guilty, and not the reverse. Probably the acme of western films, the final touch to be able to close a long line of inspiration that has to come to its end since the audience has now lost their innocence. When justified violence is the angry redeeming tool of gratuitous and pleasurable cruelty. But that's also the end of a myth, the myth that there is a salvation of the innocent and the weak in this savage world that could not even think of existing if it were not brutal.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, University Paris Dauphine, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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