Unforgiven (1992) First Time Watching! Full Movie Reaction!!
Added 2022-03-14 17:05:24 +0000 UTC
Comments
Clint Eastwood sat on this story until his face was old & craggy. After this movie, Gene Hackman was hired to do voiceover commercials for Lowe’s Home Improvement stores
Wayne Kryka
2024-09-25 05:46:49 +0000 UTCI absolutely love this movie. It's really the first deconstruction of the western; many have followed and none were as affective as this one. Not surprising, considering Eastwood's past films, but it's a brilliant retrospective. I love how they don't explain what Claudia saw in William, why she chose him when she had a slough of gentlemen suitors. So much rich history in the world, most of it unexplained but clearly very present. And as always, I loved your reaction to it. I'm curious what other westerns you'll explore, and I look forward to going on the journey with you.
Gary Giaimo
2022-04-17 03:12:19 +0000 UTCThe Good, The Bad and The Ugly is actually the best film of all of the films. It's kind of a "not quite trilogy" - with Clint Eastwood playing almost the same character but not quite exactly the same character in all three.
Neal Romanek
2022-03-20 21:07:03 +0000 UTCPale Rider is a good movie too.
Aaron Barlow
2022-03-18 06:21:36 +0000 UTCLove this movie so much. Favorite scene is Little Bill in the jail telling the true story of Corky Corcoran’s death. Also sets up the great callback at the end. Little Bill says fast isn’t all that matters because a guy will be hurrying and he’ll miss. In the final shootout, Bill shoots before Will, but he was hurrying, and he missed.
Jim Barnes
2022-03-17 08:11:10 +0000 UTCFollow this up with "Million Dollar Baby", another film Eastwood produced, directed and starred in, along with Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress along with Best Picture and Best Director.
David Martin
2022-03-17 07:47:23 +0000 UTCThat is true, though he thinks better of it almost immediately and spends the rest of the assault trying to stop the big guy. Not blameless, but mainly guilty of a moment of cowardice which he somewhat redeemed by then trying to fight the other guy off, it seemed to me.
Warren H
2022-03-17 06:22:38 +0000 UTCThe young cowboy who didn't cut her held her down so the big guy could cut her. You can hear the big guy say, "Davey, come a runnin' lad. Hold the bitch down. Go on, hold her! Hold her or I'll I'll cut her tits out" and see the other man hold her down in the corner of the room.
David Martin
2022-03-17 05:45:36 +0000 UTCSo glad you watched this one!! Before we get to the rest, there is something that the people in the comments ARE incorrect about: the final sound that the gun makes is NOT a chamber being empty, an empty chamber makes no sound when you turn to it. Little Bill was not dropping the hammer on chambers as he went, they would have fired. The sound at the end was the loading gate closing. It is true, that before there were firing pin safeties, six shooters in the old west were often carried holding only five rounds, hammer down on an empty chamber. So no, the gun was what would have considered to be fully loaded--Bill just successfully bluffed Bob, and then (once there was no danger) basically made it sound (for the benefit of the writer) like he would have won even if Bob had gone for it. Why do I know that's a fact? Because they said so in an HBO special about the movie on its tenth anniversary. :) Okay, on to other things---First, the cowboys are getting protection because Little Bill declared very loudly (as he was kicking Bob half to death) that "there ain't no whores' gold" which basically was him saying "Not in my town" and now he has to back that up. It wasn't like it was a normal election process back then in all old towns, frequently a sheriff was somebody who showed up and declared himself tough enough to protect people from other thugs...so your reputation meant a lot. If he says don't do it, and people just do it anyway, then he looks weak. As far as the accuracy (or lack of) goes, I'll tell you this---shooting is a fine motor skill, and fine motor skills go down approximately 40-60% when you're filled with adrenaline. In Afghanistan the average was 20-30,000 rounds expended for every enemy casualty. Now, not ALL of that is flat out missing, a lot of rounds are expended in suppressive fire and things like that, but I can think of a particular occasion when I found that I'd completely emptied my magazine and had absolutely NO recollection of having fired my weapon that many times, and I certainly hadn't hit 30 guys. You get into tunnel vision where you're trying not to die and you just start running and gunning and ducking, it's absolutely nothing like standing on a firing range and calmly punching holes in paper. During the civil war, in the early battles, many soldiers were discovered to have a dozen or more bullets rammed up into their muskets---they were so scared they forgot to fire. The advice that Little Bill is giving is actually largely pinched in real life from Wyatt Earp, who was quoted as saying "fast is fine, but accuracy is everything. In a gun fight... You need to take your time in a hurry." In modern combat shooting training, the line is "you can't miss fast enough to win." And we say that over and over because when they're scared, people will so often just spray and pray. So in actuality, the lack of accuracy (especially with pistols) is one of the most realistic things about this movie; especially considering that ammunition was much more scarce/precious back then and shooting for fun/practice wasn't nearly as much of a thing as it is now. And lastly, I'll say this, and of course there's no right or wrong, only opinion: I wonder (much like Roy Batty from Bladerunner) if you'd be against Little Bill if the movie hadn't told you to root for William, Ned, and the Kid? :) I mean, yes, he's violent...and so are they. Yes, he has a dark past...so do they (except the kid who only WISHED he had a dark past). On multiple occasions, Little Bill uses non-lethal force when dealing with people he knows full well are killers (Bob) and people he has excellent reason to SUSPECT are killers (and our heroes DID go there to kill). Yes, he kicks the crap out of people, but he could easily kill them and it's not like any higher authority in the town is going to say anything about it. He has all the power, and yet continually tries to end things WITHOUT people dying. Even Ned--and yes, whipping somebody is awful--seems to have been killed by accident (at least according to the one girl's account). Little Bill seems, very much like William, to have had an extremely violent past (Bob is very afraid of him) and has tried to start over. He's far from a saint, but within the story, who's actually better? I've often suspected, if we spent more of the movie on Bill's porch, listening to stories about the old days, and less hearing about Claudia, that we might well have been rooting for the sheriff who's trying to keep droves of killers out of his town; which is one of the things I love about the movie so much, and again what I find realistic. I'll steal a line from Star Wars---many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view. Anyway, not arguing with you guys (like I said, nothing makes me "right") just wanted to throw my own hat in on some of the issues you raised. Love watching movies with you!
Warren H
2022-03-17 04:33:36 +0000 UTCGreat reaction, as ever. Besides this and the Man With No Name trilogy, Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josie Wales (both directed by Eastwood) are two more brilliant Westerns that merit a watch. He truly is a master of the genre.
Steven Montano
2022-03-16 18:45:38 +0000 UTCThe eternal debate-- one in the chamber or not. heh.
Alex
2022-03-16 16:31:44 +0000 UTCBeautiful reaction guys, as always! Put Gran Torino , Million Dollar Baby, and Mystic River on the Eastwood list (there are many more, but its a start) 🙂
ron clint
2022-03-16 15:56:54 +0000 UTCThis movie was pretty wild. When I heard that Ned got killed, I was like oh man. He's gonna kill every single one of those cops. "A man should be armed if he's going to decorate the front of his place with my friend."
Alex
2022-03-15 18:46:45 +0000 UTCI always saw it as as Little Bill rubbing it in, making two points - first, the gun was technically loaded, but two, the first chamber had been empty so even if The Duck had gone for the gun, Little Bill still would have had an advantage.
Thomas Yanez
2022-03-15 18:04:30 +0000 UTC@Tre I'm sure you're right. But after thinking about it some more, if the first chamber was empty then The Duck's reaction to seeing the bullets drop makes NO SENSE at all... unless they were trying to reinforce his stupidity (i.e., to him, like to me, the gun was either loaded or unloaded.) But he's supposed to be this great duck.. maybe that's the point?! I dunno :S
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2022-03-15 03:09:27 +0000 UTCIt was common for people to leave one chamber empty on a single action revolver to avoid a accidental discharge.
Tre D Smith
2022-03-15 03:02:22 +0000 UTCWait a second. I must have seen this film 20x but it never occurred to me that one of the chambers (likely the first one) was empty in the gun that the writer (books, not letters) "gave" to The Duck. That so drastically changes Bill's character in my eyes that I'm not really comfortable accepting it's true. But I watched it again and he clearly "spins" over a chamber at the end of the sequence and no bullet falls out. 5 fall previously. Would it make sense for that gun to only have 5 chambers? (I know nothing of guns back then.) Perhaps he was "spinning" past the first chamber again which already had its bullet dropped (that feels thin to me.) Huh. Wow. Was I alone in my ignorance? Jeez, how interesting it is to see things from a new perspective... no matter how familiar you are with it!!
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2022-03-15 02:47:33 +0000 UTCI highly recommend watching this again on your own time after seeing a few more classic westerns that Clint Eastwood starred in, such as the Man With No Name Trilogy and Pale Rider, as you'll experience more facets to what story is being told in Unforgiven. This movie is playing directly against the exaggerated bravado and heroic embellishments of the classic westerns which made Clint a star, where heroes and villains were painted clearly and the killings for which they were responsible are nearly always left unexamined themselves.
Christopher B.
2022-03-15 02:33:30 +0000 UTCI agree with most of those westerns named above. I would also add Silverado which has gunfights, saloons, gamblers, cattle barons and stampedes, covered wagons, outlaws, good guys vs. bad guys, pretty much every western movie trope you can think of, and John Cleese as the sheriff! For a light-hearted western, I'd recommend Support Your Local Sheriff and for just comedy, Rustler's Rhapsody.
Opie Wan
2022-03-15 02:28:23 +0000 UTCY'all seem to be having a lot of trouble understanding just how little "worth" the prostitutes had compared to good ol' boys that ain't never done no wrong 'cept roughing up a whore or two. Very, very different times. Also, Little Bill was a lot more concerned about people following his "law" than the rights of the women.
Thomas Yanez
2022-03-15 01:30:49 +0000 UTCGreat reaction like always. I wish you guys would have gotten to watch a handful of other Westerns before coming to this film. This film is similar to Scream in that you can watch it as your 1st horror/western film and still enjoy them but they really shine when you can appreciate how they are breaking down the normal tropes of the genre.
Joseph Tamburo
2022-03-15 00:45:59 +0000 UTCMy favorite Eastwood directed film is Mystic River. Great cast.
Jonathan Patrick
2022-03-15 00:37:12 +0000 UTCMillion Dollar Baby is great also by Eastwood.
Will Zamora
2022-03-15 00:33:42 +0000 UTCThanks for watching this, I really appreciate your reaction to it .
Will Zamora
2022-03-15 00:30:51 +0000 UTCWill Munny has forgiven himself for his past and Little Bill isn’t self aware to do the same
Will Zamora
2022-03-15 00:28:03 +0000 UTCNext to this film, my favorite Eastwood westerns are The Man With No Name Trilogy.
David Eldridge
2022-03-14 23:49:22 +0000 UTCOne of my favorite movies of all time. Unforgiven is amazing.
TGrimace
2022-03-14 23:07:15 +0000 UTCClint Eastwood never fails to deliver, even if just playing the part of actor, he is always so much fun to watch.
Vwlss Nvwls
2022-03-14 22:21:36 +0000 UTCIt is funny talking about Clint Eastwood and westerns and barely a mention in these comments for the classic Spaghetti westerns, the Man With No Name trilogy by Sergio Leone, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For A Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (1966), the movies that catapulted the Western genre into the modern era and made Clint Eastwood a superstar. Forget all the talk about Once Upon A Time in the West, it was The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly that was Leone's true Western Classic and a must see for every movie fan.
Mike LL
2022-03-14 22:17:40 +0000 UTCGreat reaction! Unforgiven is definitely an outlier in that it's so contemplative about violence and consequences when most westerns are just about fun and shooting bad guys. It is a little odd that this is your first Clint Eastwood western. It's kind of like watching Godfather III first. Still the Leone movies are fantastic.
Ellie Miller
2022-03-14 22:02:26 +0000 UTCGreat suggestion! It feels like that's a movie that nobody really talks about... hell, I even forgot about it, and I really like it!
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2022-03-14 21:37:07 +0000 UTCAmazing if that’s the case. Really love Changeling and Million Dollar Baby. He’s talented.
Mark M
2022-03-14 21:33:41 +0000 UTC"A Perfect World" w/ Kevin Costner & Eastwood was his follow up film to "Unforgiven". While not quite the masterpiece that film is, it's damn close. Well worth your time. Also, one of Costner's best performances.
BD Williams
2022-03-14 21:33:37 +0000 UTCYeah, the music in this one was fantastic. Used sparingly, no doubt, but great nonetheless.
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2022-03-14 21:33:32 +0000 UTCGod I love this film; there are simply too many phenomenal scenes to mention. "I guess you think I'm kickin' you, Bob." might be my favourite line, though :) Personally, I think every other western pales in comparison to this one; but I do understand why it's not everyone's favourite. For me, Will Munny has more depth than every other Clint Eastwood (western) character put together. On top of that, throw in Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman as well? Hell yeah! And the dialogue... my god, the dialogue was so good. Another reactor's perspective by the end of the film was that she wasn't sure who she's supposed to root for. Indeed.
Uncle 'Traveling' Matt
2022-03-14 21:33:00 +0000 UTCLennie Niehaus is great, but I'm pretty sure Clint is the uncredited writer of Claudia's Theme.
BD Williams
2022-03-14 21:29:44 +0000 UTCI always love the soundtracks to Clint Eastwood movies. Claudia’s Theme is a favourite of mine. Bravo Lennie Niehaus !
Mark M
2022-03-14 21:23:18 +0000 UTCMy fav western is Once Upon A Time In The West with Charles Bronson. You should check that one out. It's a classic as far as Im concerned.
S N
2022-03-14 20:44:17 +0000 UTCSince you seem to have missed most of Clint Eastwood career as a director and producer, you should definitely make it a point of watching "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) and "Gran Torino" (2008) - make it a trilogy if you like. Both of those are fantastic, Eastwood really became a top notch moviemaker since the end of his "Western" days.
Alec S
2022-03-14 20:39:45 +0000 UTCI do not consider this a Western it is filed as a Drama in my collection. Good movie but not a Western.
Beau Mont
2022-03-14 20:34:30 +0000 UTCAl Pacino and Clint Eastwood are two of the best of all time! So many great movies of the past fifty plus years.
Mike Tocci
2022-03-14 19:57:20 +0000 UTCSome great suggestions here, all of them! Play Misty For Me was Eastwood's first film that he starred in and also directed. He does a fantastic job as a first time director with the storytelling and pace of eye film really keeps you involved. I think it would make for a great video here.
Mike Tocci
2022-03-14 19:55:36 +0000 UTCit's kind of a shame that you couldn't watch a few more westerns before this one, it's sort of a commentary on the genre of western as a whole (and specifically Clint Eastwood's career in westerns). It was not considered a typical western at the time it came out(many were jarred by how little action it had) But I get it, it's one of the most acclaimed westerns of all time(won Best Picture Oscar) so of course it would win a poll etc. The western was the dominant genre for decades(it's really staggering how many came out in the 30s/40s/50s) and most had the tropes you were expecting(shootouts, quick draw etc)
Birdie Num Num
2022-03-14 18:55:00 +0000 UTC>> Clint Eastwood? Lol, he won best Picture and best Director for that movie and was nominated for Best Actor too, but Pacino beat him with role in "Scent of a Woman", tough act to follow. Hackman won his second statue too for this flick.
Alec S
2022-03-14 18:37:21 +0000 UTCA list of westerns I highly recommend, El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995), Shanghai Noon (2000), Once upon a time in Mexico (2003), 310 to Yuma (2007), The Magnificent Seven (2016), The Hateful Eight (2015), Brimstone (2016), Forsaken (2015), Bone Tomahawk (2015), The Ridiculous 6 (2015), Last Man Standing (1996), A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), Django Unchained (2014) Cowboys vs Aliens (2011), The Last Stand (2013), Blackthorn (2011) The Mask of Zorro (1998), and a animated movie with Johnny Depp called Rango (2011) just because it's a high-quality fun adventure worth watching :P
Terry Lee
2022-03-14 18:19:08 +0000 UTCYes !!! I love this Masterpiece !!! 2 Oscars for Clint Eastwood are justified !!! For me Clint Eastwood is the greatest !! "Play Misty For Me " (1971) is Amazing !!! All 5 Dirty Harry Movies are Great !!! "Tightrope" (1984) is a great Thriller that is also missing from the List, "Escape From Alcatraz" (1979) and "The Gauntlet" (1977) are two Classic Movies !!!
Florian Meier
2022-03-14 18:14:00 +0000 UTCIncredible! -Sam
TBR Schmitt
2022-03-14 17:57:11 +0000 UTCLove it! These are on our Western list :) -Sam
TBR Schmitt
2022-03-14 17:57:03 +0000 UTCEnjoy! :) -Sam
TBR Schmitt
2022-03-14 17:56:43 +0000 UTCSaw this in the theaters when it came out. A true classic!
Steven Montano
2022-03-14 17:39:37 +0000 UTCYes, I love these early day popcorn 🍿 moments at home watching you guys react to classics. Other must see westerns are Young Guns Part 1 and 2.
Jonathan Patrick
2022-03-14 17:12:53 +0000 UTCFinally!
Jason Dolan
2022-03-14 17:09:51 +0000 UTC
