The 1992 Best Picture winner was blessed with a stellar cast (including Gene Hackman, Richard Harris, Morgan Freeman), pretty good writing (David Webb Peoples) and director/star Clint Eastwood’s gritty determination to get things right both on screen and behind the camera.
Seen three decades later, the film feels more like a revenge fuck extraordinaire than compelling drama. Akin to a retired detective called in for “one last case”, Eastwood (as former desperado Will Munny) is summoned to avenge the brutal cutting of a hooker for a house-raised bounty of $1,000.
With a heavy undercurrent of “don’t get mad get even” (and, curiously these days, Freeman’s “Black” card never being played), the film brings few surprises as the “unforgiven” get what’s coming to them.
Here’s hoping our present-day “bandits” will, likewise, be called to account. JWR