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Paul Greenwood reviews
Warner Home Video
- Cert: R
- Cat.no: 23457
- Running time: 131 minutes
- Year: 1992
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 33
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: $26.95
- Extras:Audio Commentary, 4 Featurettes, Maverick Episode, Trailer, Awards
Director:
- Clint Eastwood
Cast:
- William Munny: Clint Eastwood
Little Bill Daggett: Gene Hackman
Ned Logan: Morgan Freeman
English Bob: Richard Harris
The Schofield Kid: Jaimz Woolvett
W.W. Beauchamp: Saul Rubinek
Strawberry Alice: Frances Fisher
Delilah Fitzgerald: Anna Levine
Quick Mike: David Mucci
Davey Bunting: Rob Campbell
Skinny Dubois: Anthony James
This is the movieRoad to Perditionwants to be when it grows up.It’s a fearsome tale of retribution and redemption on a grand scale. It isunquestionably one of the greatest westerns ever made and one of the bestfilms of the 90s and it’s finally available on a special edition DVD a fewyears after a rather weak initial release.
It’s the 1880s in the town of Big Whisky, Wyoming. When two cowhandsassault a prostitute, the sheriff, Little Bill Daggett, lets them off withonly a forfeit of horses instead of a more deserving punishment. Poolingtheir money, the other prostitutes put out a $1000 bounty on the cowboyslives. Meanwhile, William Munny struggles with a failing farm and two youngchildren. He is a reformed gunman, hellraiser and generally bad man, curedof “wickedness” by his late wife.
When a young gunslinger shows up at hisfarm asking Munny to partner him in killing the cowboys for a share of thereward money, Munny claims he is no longer a killer. Finally relentingsince he has to do something for money to save his farm, the two head offto Big Whisky along with Munny’s old partner, Ned Logan, for some oldfashioned bounty hunting. This will set them on a collision course to aconfrontation with Little Bill that will leave few men standing at the endof it.
The beauty of Unforgiven lies in Eastwood’s deconstruction of the mythologyof the Wild West he himself helped create in his spaghetti westerns withLeone. Gunfighters were not indestructible superheroes who could shoot fourmen dead in the blink of an eye. Killing a man was a dirty, difficultbusiness that required a cool head more than a fast hand. Every act ofviolence had consequences and repercussions and precipitated further actsof violence. There are no heroes or villains depicted here and this isUnforgiven’s true power. We’re encouraged to side with Munny because ofLittle Bill’s methods of law enforcement, but he is simply a lawman whobelieves unequivocally in keeping the peace in his town by any meansnecessary, while Munny is by no means a saint. As Munny himself so ablyputs it, “Deserve’s got nuthin’ to do with it”.
The acting varies from the very good to the truly exceptional. Eastwoodgives his best-ever performance, a far cry from his typical action manroles. Freeman has never given a bad performance in his life and is asclassy as ever, while Harris proves yet again that when he’s not playing incheesy rubbish, he really can act. Blowing them all away though is Hackman,who is staggeringly good. At turns brutal and sadistic yet wickedlyhumorous, he brings incredible depth and conviction to the part.
Visually this is often a very dark film, full of night scenes and shadows,but the presentation here is excellent, with strong blacks and browns.There are also plenty bright daytime scenes depicting the stunninglandscapes and these also look superb. A first rate transfer.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is also of a high standard. While mostlyfocused on the central dialogue speaker, there are some lovely ambientsounds like rainfall and insects from the rears and the gunfirereproduction is very impressive.
There’s a solid, if variable, selection of extras which begins with aninformative if not especially entertaining commentary from Eastwoodbiographer Richard Schickel. Then there are four featurettes: All onAccounta Pullin’ a Trigger (22 mins) includes a nice selection of recentlyfilmed interviews with Eastwood, Hackman and writer David Peoples on thethemes and aspirations of the film, but is padded with a ridiculous amountof clips from the movie; Making Unforgiven (24 mins) is an on set accountthat includes interviews and behind the scenes footage and gives a goodview of Eastwood at work; Eastwood – A Star (16 mins) explores Clint’scareer through clips and interviews and a cheesy voiceover and is reallyrather weak.
The best of the bunch is the 68 minute documentary, Eastwood on Eastwood.Made by Schickel and narrated by John Cusack, it’s a thorough biography ofClint’s life and career from his early days in the army and his first smallroles through his cycle of films, and is only marred by the obvious adbreaks for American TV – “When Eastwood on Eastwood returns” …..“We now return to Eastwood on Eastwood” etc. Otherwise, well worth a look.
An unusual extra is the inclusion of an episode of the 50s TV series,Maverick, which is fair enough if you like that sort of thing. Finally,there’s the standard theatrical trailer.
Overall, what more could you want than one of the finest films ever made,looking and sounding better than it ever has on home video, backed up by adecent slew of extras? The bottom line is, unless you plain just don’t likefilms, there is absolutely no excuse for missing this.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALLE-mail Paul Greenwood
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.