Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 80% Complete

After watching the latest Clint Eastwood collection film, the 1992 academy award winning Unforgiven (trailer), I still love it for the fact that I am still so flummoxed at who to root for in this film. I have no idea if that was by design or not, but I applaud it for showing that everyone in this film has their positive and negative qualities, take 'em or leave 'em.

Unforgiven takes place in the fictional Old West town of Big Whisky. It starts off with a couple of cowboys who got a little too rowdy and roughed up a prostitute and essentially went away unpunished by the town sheriff(Gene Hackman). The hoes decided to take revenge into their own hands and put a $1000 bounty on their lives. Aspiring bounty hunter, The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) tracks down legendary, but retired outlaw Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) to lure him back for one last job. Munny brings along his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) for the journey, and the three make haste to Big Whisky.

I find it a little amusing that Clint Eastwood has been portraying an over the hill old guy for over 20 years now. Unforgiven gets that point across from the start where Munny just does not have that good of a shot as he use to, and even has trouble saddling up onto a horse. Logan is the same way, both former criminals have cleansed their past and moved onto better lives, but take on this final job to set things right forever for them, but have many problems bringing back their old selves to get the job done. Eastwood gets this point across masterfully throughout the film.

Watching the behind the scenes documentaries on the disc, I guess I should find it as no surprise they constructed this set from scratch. Eastwood set a rule to have no cars out there and made the entire cast and crew report to duty via wagon and horse. I love how Unforgiven portrays its version of the West. Especially when Munny, Schofield and Logan are out riding the trails in the country and making it feel like you are free out there to do whatever you desire.

One other thing that got to me from the behind the scenes features is that Eastwood made it sound like the protagonists and antagonists are pretty black and white. As I alluded to in the intro, I could not disagree more. The antagonist is town sheriff Little Bill. The film does portray him in quite the negative light as taking the law into his own hands, and even more so as making his deputies look like absolute cowards and petrified of outnumbering one gunmen 10-to-1 in a couple of scenes. I get it, Little Bill is corrupt and sadistic, but he is the town sheriff, and he has the town's best interests at stake, right? Ok, so Eastwood and gang are the heroes right? Well, both Logan and Munny are former notorious outlaw who murdered countless innocents, and are now out at it again as assassins, so why should I root for them? In the end, I found myself rooting for who Eastwood wanted me to, and again I tip my hat to him for making me question the moral compasses of the main characters. It just goes to show you that everyone has their light and dark sides, just that Unforgiven is one of those few films that has the guts to show the extreme sides of both.

My favorite scene in the film is when one of the prostitutes takes her time to ride up to a meeting place with Schofield and Munny. Schofield goes on a rambling diatribe talking himself up, then loses it all while Munny just stands there and nods along like it is another day. The scene proceeds to knock it out of the park when the prostitute, delivers some unsettling news to Munny, and the way Munny digests the news in his calm, collective manner let's you know that it is on, and the table is set for the final showdown. Of course I am going to provide you a YouTube link to this legendary clip so you all can take it in again, just be forewarned I danced around some major spoilers in the scene so you may want to hold off on watching it if you have not seen the film yet.

Unforgiven netted Eastwood two Oscars, one for Best Picture and another for Best Director. Yesterday was the second time I saw it, and it still holds up amazingly well today. It is far and beyond the cliché wild west genre film, and of the last 25 years it ranks right up there with Tombstone and Django Unchained as my favorite westerns. As I mentioned before in these blogs, my first memories of Eastwood were for the many westerns he did in the early stages of his career, but of the ten film collection in this set, this is the only western to appear in it, and they easily made the best choice. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but I give this one of my highest recommendations yet to track down and add to your film library. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino