Clint Eastwood
Gli Spietati

In the cinematic landscape, there are films that are true cornerstones, and few have achieved both critical and public success like Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" from 1992.

9 nominations and 4 Oscars won, including the 2 most important ones (Best Picture and Best Director), ranked sixty-eighth in the American Film Institute's list of the best films of all time, a 4/4 maximum rating in Paolo Mereghetti's notorious dictionary, a "milestone ondacinema" according to a well-known local cinema site named in its honor... in short, this is a work that truly unites everyone.

I am very keen to review "Unforgiven" because this twilight western evokes in me contrasting feelings, making it so that every time it is broadcast on TV I can't help but watch it (despite owning a DVD of it at home!).

Due to a form of neurosis, I tend to rewatch films that haven't completely convinced me more often than those I consider absolute masterpieces, almost out of an ill-concealed fear that the latter might disappoint me and not stand the test of time. In particular, I willingly rewatch works that are so loved and about which so much has been written, almost hoping to change my mind or to understand what I'm missing or what my sensitivity doesn't fully comprehend, and this film, as far as I'm concerned, is a perfect example.

We all know the plot: 1880, an ex-outlaw nearing the end of his life takes up the bad road again for money to kill two cowboys responsible for disfiguring a prostitute in Big Whiskey, Wyoming.

The film's merits are remarkable nonetheless, the cinematography is beautiful and some scenes are memorable: I think of the rainy nights, the skies heavy with bad omens, and above all, I think of the development of certain characters that still fascinate me today, Gene Hackman as Little Bill is superb, it seems like in his acting life he has done nothing but play a sheriff, a sheriff so dirty in his dark past, in his violent coldness, and misogyny, yet at the same time with a small dose of likability while handling carpentry work (which he doesn’t know how to do!) and somehow fair (banning firearms in his county) and necessary in his partisan severity, the saloon owner Skinny is the perfect pimp... Clint couldn't have found a better face, a kind of otter maneuvering in a world he wouldn't survive if he had to behave loyally, and so becoming the ideal exploiter of women considered mere pack animals... Even the minor characters, who are not so minor, like the mean cowboy who scars the woman, the dandy killer English Bob, and even his biographer Beauchamp add a touch of lightness to such a dark film like this.

In short, everything is fine except that there are some things I just can't bring myself to like; watching the film, I get the sensation of a certain artificiality that Clint employs in wanting to dispel certain clichés of the western cinema at all costs, the biggest shortcoming I notice is a certain lack of credibility in the protagonist’s character which becomes so ecumenical following a promise made to his deceased wife. It's hard for me to believe that such a terrible killer can change in that way (even if for a brief period as we then see), or rather, it seems impossible to me that a person of this kind could have such a complex conscience and could become such a wise father who repeats throughout the film that "he killed because he was drunk from morning to night".

The same goes for the character played by Morgan Freeman, the friend of such a terrible killer, probably born a slave and probably illiterate, who redeems himself at the moment of firing the decisive shot doesn't convince me at all... in short, if a realistic western it must be, the only characters I find truthful are the jackals who go to steal the boots from the dead citizens in "The Wild Bunch".

Schofield Kid is among those I can tolerate the least; the speech made at the foot of the tree I find bombastic in its implausibility. I find it unlikely that a not too bright kid like him, shaken from killing a man in cold blood in that way, would find the words to open his heart and affirm that he no longer wants to kill anyone (unfortunately the Mafia teaches us that once kids start, they remain hitmen for life).

The music composed by Clint is so sweet and melancholy that it accompanies the protagonists’ rides, I find it rather bland and inappropriate if we consider the nature of the task they are about to undertake (it's true that soundtracks sometimes play on contrast... for example, wonderful scenery/killer galloping but even taking this into account I can only find them banal).

In conclusion, I find the film well-made and with notable merits but I can't consider it the masterpiece it is for most... it seems rather cold and calculated to me and that it was perhaps excessively hyped by the press, as if the whole world had been waiting for the ultimate western for a long time.

The film's title is incredibly fascinating, both in the original language and Italian (GLI SPIETATI... with such a title you're already off to a good start!) and I think it contributed in a small part to the film's global success, also the poster is very beautiful.