Unforgiven

Let me just take a moment to acknowledge David Peoples, a screenwriter who without me realizing it until now has written screenplays for three movies I've liked and blogged about in the last year and a half; this, 12 Monkeys, and Blade Runner. That's a pretty diverse and impressive list. Good on you, Peoples.

Anyway, Unforgiven is probably the best western I've ever seen. It's not the normal easy moral tale where some kindhearted gunslinger saves the township from evil bandits. There's no good guys or bad guys in this movie, just people on opposite sides of things. Clint Eastwood directed and stars as a former tough son of a bitch who got domesticated by his now-dead wife, but has to return to killing for the money. Morgan Freeman is his old partner who agrees to come along. Gene Hackman won an Oscar for his performance as the sheriff of the town the story revolves around, and he's equal parts dedicated lawman and vicious bastard. Richard Harris shows up as a dishonest gunman known as English Bob, and he's mostly there to give Hackman something to do while Eastwood and his posse take their good damn time getting to the plot. The movie seemed a bit slow in places, but I find that to be a common malady of the western genre, and the movie is well-written and well-put together enough to keep it from ever getting too dull.

Basically, some whores put together some money for a bounty on a couple cowboys outside Hackman's law, and Eastwood makes the long journey to try and collect. Obviously they end up at odds, and despite it not being the reason for the journey, the resolution of their conflict is the story's climax. It's an interesting, dark movie, one that shows the supposed violence of the time without ever once glorifying it. It's heavy without being heavy handed, and both manages to convey a message and simply deliver a clever, violent western if that's all you're looking for. I found it to be well deserving of its many awards, and got me interested in some other work by Eastwood.

Gladiator

Five years after Braveheart, it was time for another vaguely historical violent epic to come in and win Best Picture. A comparison between the two is pretty valid, although the feel is somewhat different as Braveheart is more of a complete war film while Gladiator obviously is a bit smaller, with a focus on political backstabbing in the halls of Rome and literal backstabbing in the Colosseum. It's not the most substantial or my favorite of the movies of 2000, but the lead performances by Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix are quite good and the film is visually amazing. Director Ridley Scott rarely truly impresses me with his vision but if you give him a workable script he can shoot the hell out of it.

I actually saw the theatrical cut, not the extended one as pictured above. Don't ask me why I used that image. I just realized Scott's last three films have all also starred Crowe. Huh. Anyway, I quite enjoyed watching this movie. It didn't start how I expected, with a lengthy battle and series of discussions before Crowe's Maximus ever steps foot in the arena, and even longer before he actually gets to Rome. Still though, it's solidly entertaining and gorgeous to look at throughout. The fight scenes are far more brutal and generally awesome than I expected and Maximus is pretty bad ass throughout even while he's mourning and all that sensitive shit. I mean, dude kills tigers. It's great.