Unforgiven - 10th Anniversary Edition [DVD] [1992]

Winner of four Academy Awards, including best picture, director, supporting actor and best editing, Clint Eastwood's 1992 masterpiece stands as one of the greatest and most thematically compelling Westerns ever made. "The movie summarised everything I feel about the Western," said Eastwood at the time of the film's release. "The moral is the concern with gunplay." To illustrate that theme, Eastwood stars as a retired, once-ruthless killer-turned-gentle-widower and hog farmer. He accepts one last bounty-hunter mission--to find the men who brutalised a prostitute--to help support his two motherless children. Joined by his former partner (Morgan Freeman) and a cocky greenhorn (Jaimz Woolvett), he takes on a corrupt sheriff (Oscar winner Gene Hackman) in a showdown that makes the viewer feel the full impact of violence and its corruption of the soul. Dedicated to Eastwood's mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel and featuring a colourful role for Richard Harris, Unforgiven is arguably Eastwood's crowning directorial achievement. --Jeff Shannon

Set in Wyoming in 1881 during the sunset years of the Wild West, 1992's Unforgiven was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood, and is generally considered to be the towering achievement of his twilight years. Eastwood plays William Munny, once a vicious, whisky-swilling bounty hunter, brought to heel by his marriage to a good woman. When she dies, he must raise two children and run a hog farm alone, something which we see him make a comically poor fist of doing. Then, in a twist of fate, a young outlaw called the Schofield Kid trots up to his farm and invites him to collect on a $1,000 reward raised by a group of prostitutes. However, Clint must not only face up to his own somewhat rusty skills as a gunslinger, but also to genial-but-psychopathic lawman Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in superb form).

Unforgiven ultimately conforms to the expectations of the genre, while subverting quite a few of them on the way. There's brooding on the consequences of violence ("It's a hell of a thing to kill a man"), as Munny's ineptitude with a rifle is matched by his feelings of penitence for his younger wrongdoings. Finally, however, Eastwood casts aside age and inhibition in a chillingly ruthless shootout, his powers miraculously (improbably?) restored, in what could also be seen as an assertion on the part of the ageing Eastwood of his own potency as a major player in Hollywood.

On the DVD: Unforgiven is presented in this Special Edition release in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer that gives due emphasis to what critic David Thomson described as the "drained, wintry" feel of the movie. There are numerous bonus features in addition to the original trailer. Eastwood official biographer Richard Schickel offers a particularly copious and detailed audio commentary which touches on all aspects of the film. The 64-minute 1997 documentary Clint on Clint offers a detailed if inevitably worshipful account of Eastwood's career. Finally, there's a 47-minute 1959 episode of Maverick, the old James Garner TV series, guest-starring a 29-year-old Clint, several years away from his big Hollywood break. --David Stubbs

Disc 1:

Feature-length commentary by film critic & Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel

Theatrical trailer
2.35:1 widescreen

Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby 2.0 Surround (French, Italian)

Subtitles: English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Bulgarian

Hearing impaired: English, Italian

Disc 2:

"Eastwood on Eastwood" -- Schickel's penetrating 1997 documentary

"All on Accounta Pullin' a Trigger" -- New 10th Anniversary documentary

"Eastwood & co.: Making Unforgiven" -- Original documentary

"Eastwood ... A Star" featurette

Classic Maverick Episode: "Duel in the Sun"