Unforgiven (1992)[/h]<figure abp="705"><figcaption abp="706"><!-- slide body text --> Directed by Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood rose to stardom by studying John Wayne's Monument Valley-sized version of the stoic Western hero, flipping it, and revealing its darker side -- the squinting, shoot-first-ask-questions-later antihero. For decades, killing was Eastwood's business... and business was good. Then in 1992, after so many years away from the genre, Eastwood decided that he was either mature enough or wise enough or wracked with enough regret that it was time to reckon with his bloody onscreen past. Unforgiven, which Eastwood also directed, is a chilling and deeply personal meditation on violence and the toll it takes on a man. Eastwood plays an old outlaw named William Munny who's coaxed out of retirement to mete out the sort of justice he never much thought about. The entire message of the movie (and the humanistic second act of Eastwood's career) is contained in Munny's quote: "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man." --Chris Nashawaty
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