Unforgiven (1992)

Elevator Pitch: It is 1880. When a prostitute in the town of Big Whiskey is disfigured by an angry client, the whores get together and offer a reward to anyone who can dispatch him and his friend. A young man,  The Scofield Kid, recruits a pig farmer, Will Munny, who used to be a gunfighter to go for the money, and they take Will’s former partner Ned Logan with them. Meanwhile, in Big Whiskey the sheriff Little Bill, enforces his no firearms law, beating up and ejecting English Bob, the first to arrive to claim the reward. The trio manage to kill the two men, but the Scofield Kid, gives up and Ned is captured and killed by Little Bill. Will, with only revenge as an objective, rides into town to sort things out.

Content: There is no nudity, but some implied sex. After all the main players are prostitutes. Ned, Will and the kid ride across open farmland in the direction of Big Whiskey. There is an extended scene featuring the humiliation of English Bob, whose gun fighting exploits a revealed not to be true. Ned is captured and tortured and killed. Hence there are scenes in the brothel, some in the sheriff’s office/jail and a lot in the saloon. It rains for much of the time and many scenes take place in the dark.

A View: This film covered its costs on its first weekend, and made a fortune as well as winning three Oscars, one for Best Picture. The tale does not distinguish between the good and the bad. The only real victim is a prostitute and the avenging men are actually in it for the money. If anything I found parts of it a bit long and some bits of subplot seem to be a bit pointless, and even though I do not quite give it the accolade that others have, I think it is well worth watching.

This outing is defined as a “Revisionist Western” others in the same genre reviewed on this site include: Appaloosa, The Hateful Eight, Sweetwater .