![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/u/unforgiven_10ae.jpg)
Unforgiven: 10th Anniversary Edition
Clint Eastwood stars in Unforgiven (1992) as Will Munny, an aging outlaw of fearsome reputation who left his killing ways behind him to live in the redemption of a good, Bible-teaching woman. With his wife dead to smallpox, and two children and a sty of sick hogs to care for, his old life revisits him when eager young scofflaw "The Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett) enlists the infamous killer on a mercenary mission to assassinate two cowpokes guilty of slicing up the face of a whore. A masterful, icon-smashing film that reinvented the familiar trappings of John Ford within the cynical, political, and antiheroic attitudes of the early '90s, Unforgiven has been criticized both for its moralizing and its grim violence, which should give one an idea of what a provocative and complicated story it tells. Eastwood and Gene Hackman are both at their mesmerizing best, and all of their supporting performers — Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher — do them proud. Warner has put together a well-packaged 10th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition for this Oscar-winning film (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Hackman, and Best Film Editing for Joel Cox) with its centerpiece the gorgeous new anamorphic transfer (2.35:1) of Jack N. Green's excellent, vivid cinematography on Disc One. Audio is clear in Dolby Digital 5.1, and the disc also includes a commentary by Time magazine film critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel. The second disc supplements the feature film with some good extra material: a 10th anniversary featurette, a 1992 behind-the-scenes documentary, a 1992 profile of the film's star and director, an in-depth career retrospective by critic/biographer Schickel, a classic Maverick TV series episode featuring Eastwood, an awards list, and trailers. Dual-DVD digipak with paperboard slipcase.
—Gregory P. Dorr
