This is one of Eastwood's masterpieces, and one of the best westerns ever made! Brilliantly directed, and the acting by all involved is superb. A favorite of mine.

A+

one of, if not the best westerns of the last 15 years. a true masterpiece from clint eastwood.

A

Well I finally saw this movie last night, I didn't know what to expect as I don't like westerns that much (I enjoy some, but I find most boring). Well this was diffrent. Eastwood did and excellent job as William Munny, and Hackman was awsome as the evil sheriff! This also had great cinemetogrophay. This was very well done!
A

B

Good movie, but oh-so-overrated. The acting is good, but not outstanding, probably except for Gene Hackman. Parts of the movie drag, parts seem a bit pointless. The second half of the movie is better than the first, the final pay-off is great. The screenplay is pretty good and a lot of good dialogue is to be found in the movie. Nowhere close to an all-time great, though.

I agree with Lecter. Good movie but pretty overrated. B

Just watched it. A big disappointment for me.

I'm sure this film more heavily caters to fans of the Western, so I guess there's an obvious disconnect there for me. But I just could not get involved with these characters, all of which seemed to lack any semblance of roots, except for Eastwood's intentional cliche of a character, whose ambiguities I found a bit trite.

I get what Eastwood was going for here - the revisionist Western - and although I've barely seen any of these, many reviewers have proclaimed that this is as good as it gets. Eek. Obviously this isn't the genre for me.

C+

I agree with you Dkmuto. I have never really seen many westerns, but this was not my idea of a great movie. I rewatched it the other day and my feelings haven't changed. The whole movie seems pointless to me, but I have to give the actors credit, especially Gene Hackman.

B-/C+

And this may be borderline blasphemous...

But am I the only one who doesn't think much of Eastwood as an actor? I had problems with him both here and in Million Dollar Baby.

The only time I've ever thought highly of him as an actor was in the spaghetti westerns. What makes this movie are some of the slower scenes with Hackman, such as the jail scene where he talks to the reporter and encourages him to give English Bob a gun. That was riveting to me and very well done.

And yet Hackman's character felt like such a tool to me, like we were supposed to know who he was because he's Gene Hackman, because he's playing the proverbial Western baddie. I didn't feel like we were getting anything new at all in terms of villainy.

I'm disliking this movie more and more.

Well he wasn't really much of a villain was he? If you look at the film and what he did, why was he so bad?

Some drunk punk cut a prostitute, on the face if I recall right, and he wanted to give the boy a whipping which is a severe punishment not only for the pain, the scars, the blood, but for the fact also that it's not like there's a hospital nearby to save him if he gets infected. But the head madame decides that is somehow not fitting and that for the kid's attack he deserves to be killed. The audience is supposed to agree with this I guess. So she hires assassins. Hackman's character rightfully balks at this and tries to keep asassins out of his town. While we can't condone the torture of Freeman's character, most of what Hackman did was pretty reasonable given the circumstances. I've long contended that this movie could have been filmed in a way that had Hackman's character the hero, with a few little changes here and there.

Doesn't just reverse the myth of the Western; takes a hammer to it and fucking destroys it. Dark and chilling, it's a fitting end for the form. Only Clint had the rep to pull this off.

It's meant to be that there are no clear-cut heroes and villains; the moral ambiguities are the whole point! When Clint says, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it", it's the perfect summation of everything the film is trying to say about violence and the West. It's not that Clint is the good guy and Hackman is the bad guy; it's a lot more complicated than that.

Did I say High Plains Drifter was the darkest Western revisionism got? I was wrong. This is.

7/10.

I agree with trixster on a lot of points, really a fantastic flick, very moving, powerful, and in some ways, realistic. The open ending (and by that I mean the message not plotline) really sells the movie. Everything is excellent all through. But somehow it didn't quite live up to the hype, it's not even on clint's top 3 flicks, IMHO, but that is a very exclusive list.
9.5/10

That's the first time I ever saw someone grade a film with a 9.5/10 and say "It didn't live up to the hype".

Haha, isn't it appropriate for this film though? Everyone told me it was the greatest film of Eastwood's career, the best western ever, it was his biggest oscar triumph, yet I thought Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and The Good The Bad and The Ugly, were all better, and all get 10's, this gets a 9.5 so...

Its Undoubtedly the best Western made in a long long time, but that's not really saying much for a genre that is pretty much dead. Really since this film, no Western comes close.

Clint really who defined the genre with role as "the Man with no name" really took the genre at spat at it and literally showed how much legend and myth it truly was.
That is what I find the most remarkable thing about the film, that a man who really helped define the genre then creates a film that really spits in the face of all those classic Westerns.


Clint is respect in this film, and to those who says he doesn't act, lol, that is what he is known for. That stern, mean, man who even is broken, twisted and beaten down still makes you respect him. Way better than the crazy overacting crap like most actors do in these Western film. Yeah going on endlessly at the end of the film pretending to have gone crazy after killing and bribing people.


A great film by Clint Eastwood, and yes the movie drags and the whole side show with the British guy was pointless, but East Wood was epic in this film.


I give the film itself a B+, but after this film, my respect for Clint has gone way way up.

My favorite western and favorite Eastwood performance.

Looking back at Eastwood, he is just epic.

Looking all the way from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly all the way to Gran Torino.

To be an icon of a certain genre to becoming a great director making Oscar worthy movies, and still nearing 80 make a super hit film liked by young and old.

You can hate him, but he has done something very actors can every achieve.