The last 25 years have not been kind to Western films, but that’s, in part, because Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” shaped the genre for the next few decades. Like “The Wild Bunch” back in the ‘60s, it removed the romanticism from the Old West but introduced the humanity that has led to revisionist takes, like “True Grit,” “Dead Man” and “The Revenant.” Here are 14 reasons why “Unforgiven” remains the best Western of the last 25 years — and one of the best of all time.
The film’s opening overture falls in line with the classical tradition, but Eastwood quickly subverts the grandeur with a visceral, violent scene of sexual abuse against a prostitute to set the stage for the film.
Enter Gene Hackman as Sheriff Little Bill. One look at his commanding eyes shows that even justice in this film is bleak. Hackman’s charismatic performance — building his house or weaving yarns of his glory days — gives way to his more ruthless side with barely a blink.
As for Eastwood, we first see him pathetically stumbling over himself in the mud as he tries to wrangle his hogs. He’s hopeless. In one moment he shows his age, instantly removing the mystique and menace built up over his entire career. It’ll take the next two hours for him to win that respect back.
Even the lines of good and evil aren’t so clear in “Unforgiven.” The women of the brothel have to justify to themselves they’re in the moral right, even as they call for blood. A touching scene, where one of the cowpokes offers his best pony to his victim, complicates the film’s morality even further.
We first get a glimmer of the old school Western when Eastwood, unable to pick off a nasty looking can with his pistol, stomps off, grabs his shotgun, then flashes this pissed off snarl. Yeah, that’s the old Clint.
Before heading off on his quest, Eastwood’s William Munny meets up with his old partner Ned Logan, played by Morgan Freeman. Freeman is smart casting because, even at this point in his career, he’s another character who has built up a cultural legacy. This shot of Ned in front of his mounted rifle hints at that storied past before it comes back to haunt him.
Ned and Bill are both bad men turned good, who have come to realize they never quite had this in them to begin with. They recall one guy who had the teeth shot out the back of his head. “He didn’t deserve that.”
Hackman steals the show, but Richard Harris as the storied English Bob gives an underrated, brilliant performance of showmanship and sophisticated eloquence. “I’ll shoot for the Queen, and you’ll shoot for, well… whomever,” he says in a line designed to get a rise out of anyone more in tune with the American sensibilities of the genre.
The film’s first great, heart-stopping moment comes when Little Bill confronts English Bob. Bill represents the law, but justice in Bill’s hands looks bleak. The scene works on multiple levels, both as a rebuke to the storybook myth-making that English Bob’s “biographer” hopes to discover, and also as tightly wound suspense.
Hackman is an absolute beast when he tells the real story of English Bob’s legacy. His words could kill when he curtly addresses Bob as “The Duck of Death.” It’s a fantastic acting showcase, but within that monologue is Eastwood laying the stakes for the final showdown: “A man who will keep his head and not get rattled under fire, like as not, he’ll kill ya.”
The first actual shootout — where Will, Ned and the Schofield Kid bag their first mark — would be a moment of catharsis in another movie. Here, the way the man slowly bleeds to death, is a hollow victory. Ned, too, looks absolutely defeated.
“It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have. We all have it coming.” Rarely have Westerns been this honest and grim.
Will’s rage absolutely boils over when he sees what Little Bill did to Ned, and Eastwood stages this saloon shootout as intensely ruthless as something out of “The Wild Bunch.” It’s not lightning quick action, but it’s Will smoothly and coolly dolling out vengeance.
“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it,” Will coldly says to Little Bill before finishing him off. He then calls outside and threatens to kill the families and burn the houses of anyone who takes a shot at him. These are not the words of a hero or of a noble man, but they do reveal the true humanity of the Old West.
