Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2755 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-09-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Special Features
Wide Screen
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 Arabic
Dolby Digital 5.1
Interactive Menus
Production Notes
Scene Access
Arabic
English

Customer Reviews

Final perfection
The last western that can ever come to life on the silver screen. After it there will only be placebo westerns. The ultimate episode of the western wilderness just before it turned so sour that your blood would curdle in your veins and your brain would either calcify into a heartless stone or liquify into a tasteless brew. The solitary cowboy is the real judge and executioner, in one word that last fatal justice maker that represents the final fate of all crooked minds that meet with their destiny in front of the barrels of his guns just before he shoots them dead with no remission, no suspension, no parole, ever and never. Fatal lethal fateful fate of a big bang death of a few trashy men who thought their violence was god's law to all others. And God came down from his heaven in the shape of Clint Eastwood and he struck them dead with the flashes of lightning of his anger. Just before these hooligans learned that women had to be respected, that plain justice, fairness and humanity require strength, righteousness and forwardness. With only one star in sight guiding their steps, the star that leads to Bethlehem and the birth of a really humane world founded on the salvation of the innocent and the damnation of the guilty, and not the reverse. Probably the acme of western films, the final touch to be able to close a long line of inspiration that has to come to its end since the audience has now lost their innocence. When justified violence is the angry redeeming tool of gratuitous and pleasurable cruelty. But that's also the end of a myth, the myth that there is a salvation of the innocent and the weak in this savage world that could not even think of existing if it were not brutal.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, University Paris Dauphine, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Simply awe inspiring
Few films come along that manage to convey a story in that 'special' way.
'Unforgiven' is such a film. So why do I rate it 4 rather than 5 stars?

Well, a plot outline is pretty superfluous for this review as it's been so well described previously. Of course, I must comment on the superb acting all-round - and use this to clarify my holding back on the fifth star...

This is simply due to the good acting, and in particular Gene Hackman.

Strangely, we know the background of all the main players in the film, and we are explicitly made aware (for example) of the role of alcohol in the killings perpetrated by Munny (Eastwood) - and as the film reaches it's climax, alcohol is seen to be a part, reinforcing the point that things are 'about to happen'.

But Little Bill, either through design or omission on the part of the film-makers, remains something of an enigma.

Hackman portrays perfectly a man who is seemingly content with his lot, but also one who is apparently respected through fear in the town he polices.

We see Little Bill avoid violence, levying fines rather than whippings.

On the other hand, we are led to believe he may have been either a gunfighter or law officer elsewhere - but we are not given much historical evidence for this. We hear plenty about where Little Bill was on occassion, but not why he was there.
We also see a man fighting to contain a savage streak of brutality within, and we notice this 'personal warning' to himself crop up after he savagely attacks 'English Bob' (Richard Harris).

The story continues with Little Bill enjoying the attention of W W Beauchamp, who is avidly listening and penning information from Little Bill - yet again, we are party to only small parts of this, and Little Bill's opinions and apparent expertise - no actual solid facts.

Little Bill mentions he is a 'dangerous man' - but again, there is an abscence of background to this, and aside from the assumed reference to being quick in the draw, there is no other information.

Little Bill is also seen to be very cautious. While brutal at times in the extreme, he is never seen approaching anyone without his deputies with guns aimed at the person in question, almost guaranteeing his safety. Only when his opponents are disarmed or restrained does Little Bill become savage. We even see him strike a woman - perhaps not so uncommon in those times, but it is of note that excepting the lead scenes, Little Bill is the only character seen forcefully hitting a woman.

At the other end of the spectrum, Little Bill faces down a loaded shotgun with apparent courage, perhaps inflated by his audience.

So, on reflection, we know the history of the main players except Little Bill when the film ends. Because of Hackman's superb acting, we do not notice the enigma developing at the time.

Yet undoubtedly, although we see two sides to Little Bill, we are not party to the man himself and how he bacame who he is in the film.

Most intriguingly (or frustrating depending on how one feels) - along with the fact that we know where Little Bill was on occassion historically, (not why) - we hear from a deputy that 'Little Bill worked them tough towns' - and we know that English Bob (and Beauchamp through Bob) knows Little Bill from the past and English Bob in particular obviously is wary of Bill - yet, we are not informed how this came about - it could be an inference to the Bluebottle saloon, but that does not explain why the gunfight happened as Bill described - assuming he was a lawman at the time.

It is also very interesting to see Little Bill's deputies react with apparent surprise and shock (and repulse from his whipping of Ned) - despite seemingly being aware of his reputation - from this, we deduce that his deputies must not have seen this side of Bill before, or, they perhaps did not believe him to be prone to such actions - either way, it is obvious from the reactions portrayed that they cannot have witnessed such actions from Bill previously, otherwise they would not be surprised.
This fits with part of Bill's character - that who seemingly does not actually want trouble around town.

So, we are left with a man who apparently polices his town through reputation (justified or otherwise) - and we know that at least some of the characters are most certainly aware of what Bill is capable of. Will Munny, possibly through the attack by Bill, or from the past, or merely by having 'been around' knows perfectly well that Little Bill is not a man who would be frightened - not surprising as we know Munny's 'experience' of 'life' in the story - yet those who work with him (his deputies) do seem less aware of Bill in this light.


Perhaps a small and trifling reason to hold back a star, but, aside from witnessing some of his recent actions, we are unable to formulate a true impression of the films second main character.

Aside from the above, I cannot praise the film highly enough. For me, a little expose of Hackman's character throughout the movie would be the icing on the cake.

A profound, thought-provoking and epic film
This film tells a story in a rather indirect way. From the prologue, which tells us about a comely and virtuous woman who marries a violent and angry man, we don't quite know where we are.

Then we see a gruesome attack of a prostitute and some rather unexpected summary justice from Little Bill (Gene Hackman). From this point onwards, the story, and the characters, tilt one way and the other. You like Little Bill, but he takes things too far. You like the Eastwood character, but you can't entirely forgive him, and you can see him sliding downwards.

The action has lingered with me for several days. What does this film have to say about hellraisers? What am I to make of the amazing denouement? Is there any justice in the ending?

Looking back there are scenes that you remember, like the mythical gunslinger missing a simple target over and over again, or Little Bill and his hopeless roof-building. The details ornament the story in delightful ways.

It's an absorbing film which confronts you with much complexity. Should law enforcers make examples of people? Do light punishments cause greater troubles? How do mythologies influence our actions? This is a very special film.