Hmm...welll...yeah...

think I stated in class that I don't much care for the western, but I have concluded that maybe it's just because I've only seen bad westerns. Maybe it's not the western really, but the concept that most stood out to me in Unforgiven was the satisfaction you get from seeing the last scene of the movie. After watching Will Munny screw up the entire movie, miss shooting a bottle from about 5 feet away, and not being able to even get on his freakin' horse, it's just very nice to see him kill an entire room full of guys with guns pointed directly at him without even getting a scratch. It's one of those movie moments that just makes you go "yeah.." OK. So maybe this isn't really a topic specific to the western, but it certainly shows up a lot in them. It just makes for good watching in my opinion. And the way it's done in this particular movie is what makes it so likeable. Normally in the western, we find a protagonist that has all his stuff together from the very beginning. Someone who just does what needs doing without constantly whining about how he "used to be" and that he's "not like that anymore," even though you can clearly tell that he's got some kind of complex since he has to keep telling himself these things. This movie might be the exception to my view on westerns. Like I said, I've only seen a few, all of them bad, so I don't really have a solid reference for what a real western is like. I'll just have to watch some more to see what they're all about... ~PSH