This movie is incredible. It is literally the quintessential Western. It’s as most Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) films go, a hard hitting moral expose on a particular issue. This actually looks at the slant of morality in movies as a good thing. It’s like The Quiet Man, except in the end the quiet man snaps and kills a bunch of people.
Eastwood stars as William Munny, reputed thief and murderer, of a mean and distemperate disposition. Long since cured of wickedness by his deceased wife, a kid comes by his farm one day in hopes of coaxing William into accompanying him to kill the men who assaulted a whore in Big Whiskey, Wyoming. Soon they’re joined by Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby), Munny’s old partner.
To overcome the men they are being paid to kill, they will also have to overcome the sheriff of the town, “little” Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman, Narrow Margin). His cruelty is illustrated in a vignette about a man named English Bob (Richard Harris, Onece Upon a Time in the West). It’s a crazy and remarkable story about the ethics of killing in a time before they were really addressed. Daggett is also an incompetent Carpenter, which reveals a lot about his psychological make up.
The saddest scene is when the kid kills a man, and then is filled with remorse. It’s so strange to watch them go through the experiences that are common place to the Western, and see them genuinely be changed. The most powerful scenes follow immediately, as William is changed and transforms from William Munny, Farmer, to William Munny, Dude. The Suit of armor is a noticeable trend to Eastwood, who plays off his earlier western persona’s and gains a physical, visual suit of personhood. He beceoms the Darker person. Simply incredible. A Definite 2
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