Unforgiven

I had never seen this movie. We watched it last weekend. Having won the Oscar I expected much from this movie. It was a good movie but I would have to call myself disappointed.

The story was good but by the end of it there is no hero. Not all movies need heroes and I suppose not all Westerns do but it certainly helps. Hearing that our character Clint Eastwood far from being a former bank robber et all was really nothing more than a terrorist of the time before settling down to raise a family is dispiriting.

The pro and epilogue letters about the wife who both tamed him and settled him add context and perhaps a lesson is to be learned that even the worst of us can be settled by love and faith.

A more textural problem with the movie is that no one is likable. Gene Hackman is certainly not. The closet we come to that is Morgan Freeman but his end is violent and jarring.

The biggest issue for me is the movie is not only spiritually dark but physically dark. You cannot see, It is dark and rainy and shadowy. I understand that is part of the setting of the tone but comparing that with the wide open vistas of the recent True Grit and there is no comparison.

It seems to be shedding a little light on the subject might have provided a contrast between the dark script and the location being bright.

Of course it won the Oscar so what I think does not matter. Still I was disappointed.