"Unforgiven" is a very good movie - not a great one. Great movies should be the only ones to win best picture, but in the tradition of "A Beautiful Mind", "Gladiator", and most recently "The Hurt Locker", this western tale is worthy of plenty of acclaim, but not worthy of the top prize.
I am convinced that there are two types of people in this world; those that love Clint Eastwood, and those that don't get what all the fuss is about. After this movie, I am certainly in the latter. While he is talented to a point, don't get me wrong, he's a one (maybe two) trick pony whose western swagger and shoot'em up "charm" wear on my patience - that's probably why the only Eastwood starring vehicle I've loved is "Million Dollar Baby" where he played slightly out of character.
The story deals with a mishap at a whorehouse which leaves one whore brutally attacked, and two cowboys guilty of the heinous crime. When the local law enforcement, led by Little Bill (more on him later), decides proper punishment is simply giving up some livestock, the whorehouse owner (is that called like a lazy she-pimp or something?) wants better justice and that justice might just come in the form of Mr. Clint Eastwood, a conflicted and tormented cowboy trying to do good, but fighting off his past indiscretions..
While I am not raving about Eastwood, Gene Hackman's Little Bill villain character is the best part of this movie - and he deservedly won an Oscar for the role. I actually found myself rooting for him - and I won't tell you how pulling for that team worked out. After coming off such a brilliant villain in yesterday's movie (Dr. Hannibal Lector), I was impressed how good a villain could come in the next year's crop of films.
Boiling it down though, my real problem with this movie is it tried to do way too much. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at this thing, and so of course some of it was great, but other parts just weren't. I kept saying 'woah, is that Morgan Freeman?', 'woah who is that British guy supposed to be and why do we need him?', 'wait a minute, I thought I liked Eastwood but now is he the villian?' - it was just a lot to process.
Another positive however was the first 60 seconds and the last 60 seconds - they do something so clever and touching, I wouldn't be surprised if that alone is why the movie won so much. I do hate when movies have a great ending and critics/viewers forget the flaws prior and just fall head over heels for the thing. So that being said, I would give "Unforgiven" a 7 out of 10 - (four of those points go directly to Hackman alone.).
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