And the Best Picture goes to....

“Unforgiven,” directed by Clint Eastwood, is a film that sought to explore themes of morality, violence, and revenge within the Western genre. While it won several awards, including Best Director for Eastwood and Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, I was left feeling unimpressed.

The film follows a reformed gunslinger played by Eastwood, who is lured back into a life of violence with the promise of a lucrative bounty. Alongside him is a young and eager accomplice, as well as his conflicted former partner-in-crime.  While the premise of the story has plenty of potential, the execution feels uneven and slow at times.

One of the major issues with “Unforgiven” is its pacing. The film stretches two hours and ten minutes, yet much of this runtime is spent on drawn-out character introductions and meandering dialogues.  For example it took nearly forty-five minutes before I felt like the story truly began to pick up. With the film’s slow build and the number of characters introduced, for a while I was left wondering who the true protagonist even was.

Perhaps the two stand-out performances belonged to Frances Fisher as the strong-willed Strawberry Alice, and Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett—both actors bringing significant depth to their characters, with Fisher holding her own in this mainly male-dominated cast.  Yet I’m still left to wonder the purpose of Richard Harris’s English Bob, whose presence seemed to have nothing to do with the plot of the film.

Despite these shortcomings, the cinematography of “Unforgiven” does capture the stark beauty of the Western landscape, and the score effectively supports an equally somber tone.  Yet, while it looks good and sounds good, it can’t make up for the lack of execution.

In conclusion, while “Unforgiven” has earned its place as the third western to win Best Picture, I was wishing that the narrative had been streamlined so that the conflict could have been resolved a lot quicker.  Perhaps then it would have been a more engaging film.