Midweek Mention... Unforgiven

Unforgiven

Sidey: . I ummed and Yeah, on the, on the outro last week, but I did lock in Unforgiven. You did. So, that's where we're at for our mid weeker.

Dan: at for our mid weeker. And I watched it almost immediately.

Sidey: did, you were, you were setting, getting ready to go as we were leaving last week.

Yeah. So, I'm a fan of the Western genre.

Dan: And this actually may have marked the last. Clint Western, I think. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I think this was his sort of swan song with it really. And yeah, he went all out, won the

Sidey: Oscar. Well, he said, he said, he said he didn't wanna do any more after this because they would all feel kind of rehashes of the same story.

He didn't have any original stories to tell after this, so that he called it

Pete: Can I, can I just say, I've seen a few westerns in my time and I like them, but I do feel that there's really only so many stories that you can have and it often involves like, you know, small town, people riding in in horses, people riding out in horses, there being some kind of shoot out.

Sidey: but if you take cinema, how many themes or stories are there? Actually not many. So,

Pete: are there? Actually, not

Sidey: but no, not really stuff a not really,

Dan: what you mean Pete, as far as this and any other Westing goes, you've got... You know, good guys, bad guys, that kind of thing. There's normally, you know, some upset villagers, you know, townspeople.

And this had it all. I mean, this is a good...

Sidey: Well, it is called Unforgiven, and why exactly is he unforgiven? Well, we're kind of told straight away what kind of person he is because it starts off... With a landscape shot, with a text scroll, saying that he was a real piece of shit.

Well

Dan: Saying that he was around his wife's mother,

Sidey: Yes, it's the mother in law, it's always the mother in

Dan: the mother in law came to look at the grave of her daughter, who she couldn't believe hadn't been killed by this horrible man she married. They, it 12 years, the marriage, I think. 10, 12 years. Murderer.

Sidey: Cowboys, it was women, children, anyone, he would kill them. He's a

Pete: was women choosing team one, he was a bad mother fucker.

Dan: well, let me say something because I was going to say that that opening scene is basically him with a shovel, a silhouette of a man with a shovel is the sun setting and he's just filling in the, the grave under a tree. And then we break into a little bit of family life and things that we realize, well, he's got You know, a farm.

He's,

Sidey: he's a reformed man. He's that that's old. That life is long gone. His wife changed him. I was able to make him see the error of his

Pete: Yeah,

Dan: and he

Sidey: and now he's a struggling farmer.

Pete: I was gonna refer to is the fact I wasn't, I was never really sure whether in his previous life he was like a, like a murderer for like gun for hire,

Sidey: Yeah. It's, it is never told if he is a bounty

Pete: almost like,

Sidey: just a thief almost

Pete: it more accept, making it more acceptable that he's like a bit of a vigilante and he only kills wrong uns and so on, but like, as more gets kind of like revealed in the story, you guess that kind of wasn't really the, the way.

But doesn't it, before we see like, Cliff, Clint, not Cliff, Clint

Sidey: Clint's, cliff Richards.

Pete: do we not get some cause I'm pretty sure like the, after

Sidey: We go straight, we go straight to Big Whiskey or Little, yeah, what's it, what's the name of the town? Big Whiskey. In Wyoming and yeah, we're straight into this this like ramshackle town, the sort of classic western set up as a bar. Which is a knocking shop at night and straight into the action where one of the prostitutes has, unfortunately she's new to this game and she's laughed at the guy's dick.

Very relatable content here. And he hasn't taken it well and he has started to cut her up with a knife.

Dan: Well, yeah, you hear his colleague, I guess, he's in bed with another one having a great time. And then you hear all this commotion next door and he goes in and he sees his mate. Like fully going nuts on this girl. He's got a knife out. He's saying laugh at me Will you and he's he's not doing it once he's really going to town there.

I mean he's

Sidey: across her face, it's quite brutal. He

Dan: really is. Yeah, he's, he's ruining her otherwise kind of good looks and his mate can't really stop him. He tries to, but he's in a rage, this guy. And yeah, that's how it starts. This is,

Pete: it's a brutal opening, really, because it's, yeah, in terms, it's a pretty frenzied knife attack

Sidey: yeah. And, you would normally expect to see like, is it cowboys and Indians, that sort of violence or another, you know, bandit getting killed by another cowboy. This is violence against a woman, so it immediately has, I think, a more heightened impact. But this is where we're introduced to Gene Hackman's character, little Bill.

He he's the local law enforcement.

Dan: yeah, and he's a tough guy. He's as tough as they come, really.

He's

Pete: overhanded,

Sidey: Well, he's tough, but he's got his friends and he's got his favorites,

Pete: think, so he, he kind of, like, again, you don't get this straight from, from his, like, opening sequence, but he kind of exercises a certain amount of control within the village, but he does it, like, not just through fear necessarily, he does it, he knows that these guys, There's going to be repercussions so how he handles it. And, and obviously all like, you know, like the, like the madam and all the other like prostitutes and stuff, they're like, well, you know, these guys need like,

Sidey: Well, he's got them tied up in the, in the saloon, isn't he?

And he's like, right. And they need to be hanged. She's saying that these boys need to hang in. And he's like, well, hold on a minute. You know, they're just boys. They got a little bit carried away. And, you know,

Dan: these aren't bad guys, they were just coming through

Sidey: We'll just, we're gonna, we're gonna give him a thrash and we'll whip him. And she's like, that's all they're gonna get.

And eventually, like, he talks his own self out, when he sort of rationalizes it. He's like, well, you'll give him, because Skinny, the bar owner, he has recently acquired this lady because that's how it was done. And he's like, I've made an investment in her. She's young. She's good looking. We were going to make a load of money.

Can't fucking, no one's going to want to fuck her now.

Pete: Or

Dan: it,

no one's gonna

Pete: nobody's

Sidey: So little Bill, little Bill's like, okay you two boys, you're going to deliver a bunch of horses. So I think it's five horses from the main guy to from the other and, and, and the madams like they're not even going to fucking get whips. Like what

Pete: Yeah. Well, that's it. Like, so he, what he does is he deals with it like transactionally as opposed to, you know, under normal circumstances. Yeah. Like you do, but again, in order to make it kind of like, cause he's obviously He's being fair, like too fair to to these, to these guys.

Albeit the other guy didn't really, it wasn't his fault. It,

Sidey: He tried to stop him. Yeah.

Dan: And the poor girl, to be fair, she's not getting any of this, she's not getting any of the horses, she's not going to get her looks back, and she's not even going to have the satisfaction of knowing these guys were

Pete: she didn't even

Dan: physically punished

Pete: get the dicking in the first place.

Yeah, no. Yeah. Didn't

Dan: get anything.

Sidey: But she was never gonna be satisfied with that. That's what kicked the whole thing off. So we, we get the.

The guys come back and it's not for a little while later But all the while the ladies upstairs are counting out their their savings and one of them amusingly has got a lot more than the rest. They're like fucking out

Pete: Yeah!

Dan: and and what they're doing is saving up to see if they can get some guns for hire, because justice has not been served

Sidey: aggression will not stand.

Pete: raising a bounty. Yeah.

Sidey: Not

Dan: Not the chocolate ones. This is like a money thing, isn't it?

Pete: Yeah, I misunderstood chocolate. I really like bounties but I get overlooked in

Dan: No, they're horrible.

Pete: tins.

Anyway,

Sidey: isn't going to go down well because... Little Bill doesn't want a load of shenanigans in his town.

He's

Dan: He doesn't want a load of guns for hire coming in, you

Sidey: No, he likes to keep it orderly. There's no guns allowed in the bar. There's no, you know, he's trying to, but... He's ruthless as well but also these guys are working at the big T. They're out doing stuff. This is like frontier life. You can't just go around killing everyone.

Nothing's going to get done. It's the way he sees it. He's we keep seeing him working on his gaff. He's uh like trying to do the porch. He's building everything by hand. He gets really off later on.

Pete: Yeah, his carpentry gets called into question. But yeah, he's not a, he's not a brilliant. He's not a great sheriff.

But he's, he's a worse carpenter.

Sidey: a worse carpenter. Yeah, these guys do come back with the the ponies and the women throw at them and obviously not welcome in the town but they they do you know, make good their arrangement. They they deliver the the fella who's got the best horse.

He he tries to give that to I don't know her name. What's the name?

Dan: to the to the girl that had the knife cuts and

Pete: everything.

Delilah.

Sidey: Yeah, Delilah. He tries to give that horse to Delilah, but they're like, What the fuck is she going to do with the horse, you know?

Pete: you can almost see like a

Sidey: got proper remorse.

Miles across,

Pete: like Delilah's face is that, you know, because again, like she, this guy didn't do anything to her. Like I, I did feel sorry for him just getting literally like guilty by association.

But yeah, he tries making more amends certainly than the other fellow. But yeah, they're not having any of it. Yeah, they get, they get dung thrown at them and, and chased out of town again.

Sidey: yeah, Lemme see. We're gonna see some more dung

Pete: there, there will be some more dung, yeah. But we've by this time we've now met Clint or... William Money, Will Money.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: And he's, as you've, you've already mentioned, he's now, like, operating this, this farm with what I thought were obviously his grandchildren, but turns out are his kids, because he's like...

Sidey: he's, he's

Pete: he's getting senior in years. He's older than you in this, Dan.

Dan: 60, 70

Pete: he's about, like, in real life, I think he's like...

Sidey: No he would have been, uh, what is he, he's 90 odd now.

Pete: He's born in

Sidey: So he would,

Pete: and this was 91.

Sidey: yeah 60

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. So he's in his 60s. And but obviously the character, but he looks old and weather,

Sidey: It's a hard life, it's a hard life,

Pete: yeah,

Dan: is a hard, it is a hard life and the kids are helping him separate some pigs.

Sidey: Some of the pigs are not well, so they're trying to get the ones with the fever away from the other

Dan: you just get this feeling he's not doing well financially. The, there's there's real problems. Then one day a young kid comes up, I say a young kid, he's yeah, he's. a teenager, maybe early twenties.

And he's heard from his father or an old friend of his that will, will money is the man to go and be your partner. He's heard of this bounty being raised and he's saying, look, it's 500 a piece. I've heard you're the man come with me. And he goes, I don't know where you've heard all that son, but I've.

Those years are be behind me now. I'm I'm straight

Pete: you, you learn that basically he, he was a bad guy. You dunno just how bad and that he used to drink.

He used to drink a lot of whiskey, but his wife showed him the error of his ways. Taught him pretty much like he doesn't drink, obviously he doesn't, doesn't kill. And he's also like much more kind to animals. He used to sort of like mistreat animals and so on, but he's not cut out for the farmer's

Sidey: It's not his strength.

Pete: No, you,

Sidey: He's struggling. We literally see him rolling around in shit and it's a fairly strong indication that he's

Dan: indication. And the kids are only young, sort of,

Sidey: very young. I mean, the kid, the, the, the son, who's the elder of the two kids, he look, he can't be,

Dan: Ten, twelve, yeah.

Pete: see him to just leave them by themselves.

Sidey: he gonna do? Because that's, ultimately, that is what happens. He, he sort of looks at the state of it, where he's at, and he's like, Couple of idiots.

Dan: all I've got is sick pigs and

Sidey: I've got is sick pigs. We're, we're struggling here. Might not make it through winter.

I'll just do this and then we'll be back. So he fucked off. Well, there's some amusing things just that they show you just to show how far. Like, his skills have deteriorated, so he's got the classic shooting the, the, like, hand which he can't do with a pistol. So he goes and gets a shotgun and just fucking blasts it

Dan: So he has

Sidey: and...

And then he has to, he has to mount his steed to, to go off into the distance and he just falls off it straight away,

Pete: I mean, it's worth saying he initially says no to the Schofield kid, but on reflection once... Hit

Sidey: film if he hadn't done it.

Dan: well, well, he, he, the Schofield kid says to him, look, I'm heading up the trail. I'll still be going there next couple of days. If you change your mind, you want to catch up?

He leaves the kids unbelievably on their own

Sidey: their own. He just says to the son if you need to kill a chicken, like, far, far away. But, you know, you're in charge. You're like,

Dan: you're in charge away for it kids just stunned

Pete: yeah, and if you need anything, check with, like, old,

Sidey: Sally Two Trees.

Pete: in the next village or something like that, which is probably, like, 50 miles away, but...

Dan: doesn't say a word the kid he just kind of stares at him like what the fucking and he mumbles something as he Gets off on the, on the horse and goes to see Morgan Freeman.

Sidey: Yeah. Ned, Ned Flanders. They, it is like getting the band back together 'cause they've obviously been up to hijinks in the past.

Dan: Well, you, you get all the way through the film, you get a, a little story or a, a comment about something that will, money's done.

And the kind of man that he is. When he turns up at Ned's place, his wife Mary, I think it is. She's got the evil eye for him straight away

Sidey: I thought that was the one he told his son to go and see, maybe two trees or whatever, yeah.

Dan: I think

Sidey: think he

Dan: he did and he ends up kind of...

Sidey: Well, she gives him stink eyes as soon as he rocks up, she's like, oh, here we go,

Dan: he walks up go, she

Sidey: we were done with all this. She

Dan: the gun on the back of his horse and she'd probably been waiting for years and years.

He's going to get back into all his bad ways again and today's the day and he brings Morgan Freeman, who to be fair to him, cannot wait to get out of the house it seems to me.

Pete: It's,

Dan: There's no need for him to go.

Pete: like when you come and knock on my door Dan.

It's like, do you want to go and play football? Like, my feet don't even touch the ground. It is exactly like that. Let's go out and get up to some, get up to

Dan: Anybody want to go down the pub? Alright, I'll see you in a few weeks, okay love?

Pete: in a few weeks. So yeah, so they they end up riding off together. And catching up with the Schofield kid, who, who they find is is, is, is got eyesight like mine.

And He's like Mr.

Sidey: yeah, he's like Mr. Magoo. He's just

Pete: it's like, cause, and the, the way they do it, it's, it's pretty funny. Cause first of all, they hear the gunshots, so then they like get down, and then like, Ned is, you know, Morgan Freeman's character, he's like going like, Hang on, he's like shooting in the other direction now.

And I'm like, what, what is going on? Like, And then eventually, like, the reveal is that he can't see shit. Cause when he goes He's like, oh, how far do you think that hawk, like, wait, you see that hawk up there? How far away do you think it is? He's like, oh, yeah, 50 meters. He's like, you can't see it, can you?

He's like, yeah, I can. He goes, there isn't a hawk, dickhead. And it's like, ahhhh.

Dan: yeah,

Pete: So yeah, he catches him, or catches him out. But

Sidey: He ends up joining their gang. And becomes quite an irritating character for some of it. Yeah,

Pete: Yeah, he's giving it the big one about how many people he's killed and everything. But he's only young himself,

Dan: you?

You say he's, they joined his gang. I mean, he joined, they joined his gang 'cause he's the one that got the bounty. So he was the one that putting it all together and they've kind of jumped on. On his

Sidey: Well, he,

Dan: and will money will will money is brought along this other guy who's saying suddenly we've got to split it three ways.

Pete: which he can't work out how much that is, but he knows it's less than in half. Yeah.

Dan: than half. Yeah. But he probably realizes, well, still a little bit of something is better than nothing.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: they all head off

Pete: and it's a, and it's the deal breaker.

Like, he kno So, obviously, the kid knows that he's actually a shithouse and he hasn't got this in him. He needs Will Money, and the only way he's gonna get Will Money is if Ned tags along as well. So, yeah, like you say, like, it does that. And then you get an amazing cameo from I just did. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, him as well.

But like from Richard Harris. I just, I didn't, I just wasn't the sort of film I'd expect like Richard Harris to pop up in. It's like,

Sidey: kind of

Pete: yeah, it kind of like, I mean, I guess it's just like fleshing it out a bit and showing the sort of like relationships between these guys who, I guess at that time, like it's, it's, it's reputation.

It's all about like, Oh, you know, this is English Bob. And like some people when they're on the train, that scene, they, they kind of, yeah. Oh, you, you must be English Bob. And obviously his reputation precedes him.

Sidey: Well, he's got an author with him. Writing his biography. Yes,

Dan: Yeah. English bob.

Yeah. English Bob is a. you know, a shot shooter. He's a gun to be feared. And as you say, he's got his own autobiography for coming along with him, which just elevates him above everyone else. And he kind of shows a guy how fearsome he is

Pete: yeah, with his shooting,

Dan: the, on the train. He, he goes, well, you know, You know, you say something to this guy and you better back it up.

And yeah, he just gets people apologizing before they

Pete: Yeah, they shoot pheasants or something. Was it pheasants? Yeah, something. They shoot some birds off the train and... English Bob gets 10, the other girl gets 1 So there's

Dan: takes it, he takes his money,

Pete: Was was English Bob in town for the bounty? Is that, yeah,

Sidey: as soon as he gets there, he's discouraged by Little Bill.

Pete: Well, this is where you get the first indicator, which it may be maybe it had been before, but I, I didn't realize, but this town that what's his name? Gene Hackman's character, little bill has, is, is the sheriff or presides

Sidey: over?

Pete: is, is gun free. So which like that would be a blessing in America nowadays, wouldn't it?

Yeah. But he, so there's a big sign on it as the train goes past and English Bob's like mucking about. I think the, the biographer sees it, Saul Robin, Saul

Sidey: Ruben. Yeah.

Pete: He he sees the sign but doesn't say anything. But it's like, no guns allowed in this town. So English Bob walks into town.

Sidey: he gets a fucking hiding.

Pete: yeah. Again, it's like, it's a power play.

Like, all of it is power plays by by Little Bill.

Dan: Well, he is sending a message to any other, anyone else who wants

Sidey: Because they don't want this, they don't want this shit coming to town.

They don't want a fucking big gunfight and all this. So

Dan: want,

Pete: coming to town. They don't

Dan: prostitutes putting their own bounty together to get a load of

Sidey: nothing. No. 'cause then it's just gonna become lawless. So the first guy that shows up looking to flip the bounty.

English Sprucken, whatever his name is. English Bob. He just gets an absolute pasting and put in the cells. As a, send a message. They

Dan: put him in cells. And they're acquaintances somehow.

Yeah, there's

Sidey: And they're old acquaintances somehow.

They're friends or they've done something together. reputational thing

Pete: on the floor. He knows, he knows of it. And then satellite towns and so on, I'm sorry, sorry, just quickly the, the biographer finds out through a night in the cells that actually English Bob is full of and a lot of his stories are you know, like, well, let's say embellished with magic markers.

So, the biographer just decides, oh, well, you're a phony. I'm going to stay with this guy because he looks like the real deal and he's got some stories to tell as

Dan: he's absolutely kicked your ass here and that's right yeah he's giving him all the the real truth of what Bill's like and Bob's like and everything and so this biographer thinks right well I've got I've got my story here

Pete: Poignantly though, little Bill says to him, it's, it's like, it's all well and good being like, the quickest gun, but the, the people who, in, in these shootouts and stuff, it's the ones who can hold their nerve. The ones who are in control are the ones who, who

Dan: and,

Sidey: Yeah. that might play out

Dan: we get to see that a little bit later when everybody's just firing up into the roof and,

Sidey: a lot of potential stormtroopers in this,

Dan: Yeah.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: quite

Pete: Terrible shots

Sidey: Quite often, obviously because of the nature of the firearms, people are quite close when they're about to do something, and then when they try and run away, there's not much distance between them, and they can't hit a fucking barn

Dan: bundle.

So Will, Ned

Sidey: different story. Yeah. So we'll...

Pete: Yep.

Sidey: Ned and the kid arrive in town. Yeah. Weather was looking a bit iffy. Yeah. Really, really bad. They go to Skinny's bar, um, and Ned and the kid are gonna enjoy themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Gonna go upstairs to see what's what. Maybe to get a bit of intel on the ladies, like

Pete: Really, see the kid is, is come to announce that they're here for the bounty and they're gonna take care of, of the business that, that needs to be done. But, like, they want an advance

Dan: Well, and they, they've all rolled into town in, in the mar of an awful kind of weather storm. You couldn't really see the sign outside that said no guns.

Sidey: Well Clint's not well as well, he's got the fever.

Dan: and Clint's got the fever and he's hunched over in the saloon.

Yeah. Just staring at a drink that he doesn't even have. It's not his they've all gone upstairs, but they're thinking this is another one of these bad characters. Let's, let's bring in Gene Hackman to sort him out.

Pete: And he

Sidey: these bad characters. Let's, let's bring in Gene Hackman to sort him out. Bullshitting him, which is not going to go well. He's in no position to fight back when they kind of strong arm him. And they do find a revolver on him, which he tries to argue the fact that it's not loaded.

But he gets the same treatment as English. What's his face?

Pete: Bob,

Dan: Bob, and yeah, he gets his arse kicked.

Sidey: proper hiding.

Dan: and sent back to

Sidey: Well, the boys come down and managed to. Get him on the back of a horse and

Pete: Yeah, they, they boost out the window, don't they? But then, then, yeah, they, they get him on the back of a horse and then go out to like a barn out in the middle of nowhere. But, they're, all the while, even though Will, is it Will? Will Money? Yeah, he's been like, he's then getting tended to by the, like, by the girls who,

Sidey: And the other two are getting

Pete: Yeah, the other two are still getting like, they'd have spent most of the thousand by the time

Dan: It's a dollar a go, isn't it, with the girls, and they're already going, You know, you only get 300, or

Sidey: But we, so it's, it's sort of Complicated well, because it's obviously like done horrible shit in the past, but now he's Still at this point in the film. He's kind of a principled man

Pete: Well, he's reformed, isn't

Sidey: Yeah Delilah

Pete: Who, can I just say, the severity of the

Sidey: It doesn't look quite so bad this but they're like cat scratches

Pete: Yeah, like, put it this way, like, you wouldn't, I mean, it doesn't look great, but, like, you know, especially because the stories at the beginning are like, oh, she's had her ears cut off, her tits

Sidey: whispers go around.

Pete: off, and all of this, yeah.

Sidey: She offers it, she says to Will, you know, would you like a freebie? And he says no, and she's clearly upset because she thinks it's because of her injuries. And he says, no, no, I would, you're very pretty. He reassures her.

Dan: if I was gonna take

Sidey: It's just because of my wife and she's like wow, you're actually like the one nice guy out here and you're like I

Dan: Yeah, okay Well, she soon finds out that actually he's not married his wife's dead and all the rest of it from the other girls a little Bit late one, but they do manage to get on the trail and start looking after looking for these

Sidey: Well, he has, he has quite a long recuperation period. 'cause he's fucked him. He nearly dies. He's got the fever and he is been beaten to apart, but he does perran and like you say, then they get on the

Dan: the a few weeks.

Kid's still there? Kid's still at home.

Pete: it's like strangling

Dan: probably had a few birthdays now, but

Sidey: it's time to track down these guys because, you know, in spite of being beaten to a pulp, they are now known as the ones who are going to collect the bag. They've been in and told the guys they're going to do it, this is going to happen.

So they do track them down, and this is the bit that irritates me with the Schofield kid, because they've got the higher ground and they find these guys and they shoot one of them. And he's just constantly nagging, like, did you get him? Is he dead? And you're like, shut up, just let him do it. But it gets him

Dan: I'm just gonna take a long time for him to,

Sidey: to Even this bit, the guy's like, can someone get me some water, because he's dying. And they've got the other guys pinned, like Yeah. You know, he's got them covered.

Pete: ground,

Dan: I'm

Sidey: and he just shouts, look, I'm not gonna shoot you. Just get him

Pete: Yeah, because he's fed up with the guy moaning as he's dying. But, it's, Will has to take the shot because Ned doesn't want to do it.

Ned's basically the sniper of the piece, isn't he? It's like, you know, Will was obviously the one that was like, hand to hand. And or like, you know, close range, but Ned was obviously brought along as, as the sniper, but his, his bottle goes, so he's decided I'm not going to do it. Will takes the shot, and that's why it's not a very good one.

He gets him in the gut and he kind of slowly bleeds out, but quick Mike is the other guy, the main one who did the slash at the face slashing. He gets away with, with some, some of his like his pals.

Dan: Yeah. Well they, they've got a few mates that help him and want, you know, can't believe it. It's like they're all mate, they were not expecting this that day. They'd just gone out for rustling some sheep or, or some cattle or whatever. One of 'em takes this deadly shot. It's a slow, horrible, painful death.

It's actually the nice lads. Hadn't done anything wrong other than by association.

Pete: his card was always marked

Dan: His card was, and even that he gave more horses to, than he should have done, than his punishment. It is a real hard one for him because he literally did have nothing to do. Pick your friends wisely.

But the, the bad guy of the, the group the one that actually did the, the cutting he still, he still needs

Sidey: he gets away, and then the three lads... Like trotting along and Ned just says, look guys, I'm going to it off. This is not for me anymore. I've I've done with this life. I'm going to go back to see the missus. She's probably got the right. He says

Pete: he, he doesn't, he doesn't go, he says he's gonna head south,

Sidey: he he just goes and it's a it's a like bad decision.

Pete: Yeah. Although Will does say he's gonna still collect his part of the bouncy for him and, and he'll give it to him. So

Sidey: yeah, he's weirdly principled about certain things. Yeah. But yeah, Ned disappears. So, it's left to the kids and they do track the guys down.

Dan: he's going to the toilet, this this

Pete: quick mic,

Dan: quick mic and you can see that they've all protected him all around the clock and they're saying, look, just wait a minute.

I'll come with you. He goes, I'm just taking a shit. I'll, it'd be fine. He goes, you get bushwhacked out there. Like, sure enough,

Sidey: Bushwhacked He does, get

Dan: he does because they're hiding. They're hiding behind the bush. Clint sends him in and says, look, now's your chance, kid. Go and get him. And after all the people he's killed, you think, oh, no problem.

But we all know he's been bullshitting. And he does pull the trigger

Sidey: takes him a little while he's got the guy And then I think you can hear the commotion so he shoots and I think he does three three rounds in the guy Into quick mic.

Dan: three, three into his chest and they leg it away.

Sidey: This is the bit so they're literally it seemed to me like about 10 15 meters ahead of the guy chasing them And they cannot fucking hit a thing but they do get away and They I think they go back to their barn their hideout and one of the ladies comes out with the money And I think it's Will says about he's got to split it with Ned and she's like, well, he,

Dan: ned's

Pete: who's he?

Sidey: and it's like, you know, and she's like, he's dead and we haven't, we haven't even talked about that, but we've had, he's been captured by little Bill, his entourage and they've tortured him and derogated him to find out stuff and they've got him strung up and they're whipping him.

It's horrible, like racist connotations from that sort of thing. And he says, if you don't fucking tell me. Yeah. All of this stuff that I've done to you will be like gendered by comparison and we don't see anything further after that. We learn that he's told them some stuff, he's given up some intel, but in the process he's died.

It was too much. The fucking punishment was too much. And when Will learns this information,

Dan: a

Sidey: it's full...

Pete: It's like in me, myself and Irene, when, when he hears the music in his head.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah, all the reformation and the rehabilitation that his wife had done, that's out the fucking window.

Dan: you see it,

Pete: he does is drink whiskey. That's literally the first thing he's like, give me the whiskey. Glug glug glug.

Dan: You just see the old will come out because he does, he reaches for the whiskey. And, you know, he hasn't had a drink in, what, 10, 12 years or something, you know that shit is gonna hit the fan

Sidey: And, it doesn't, like, waste any time getting into it. He's straight back into town. All of them are in Skinny's bar. And they're chatting away and blah blah blah and all kind of facing away from the front door and he just walks in and you can hear the footsteps and there's, you can just see the barrel of his shotgun enters the frame and the big fat guy notices him first and he's fucking shitting himself.

And skinny turns around and they sort of, he tries to say something and he like, was he gonna, and he just fucking blows him away.

Dan: blows him away. As he's walked in, Ned is in

Sidey: Because as he's walked in, Ned is in a coffin kind of strung up outside saying this is what happens to assassins across the coffin. Probably did nothing for Will's mood that um

Dan: No, no, he's just he's gone into the the the cold blooded murderer, you know They're thinking he's gonna listen to rules and stuff

Sidey: massively outnumbered. He

Dan: doesn't care. He'll shoot you in the back shoot you in the face

Sidey: face. There's, there's

Pete: they reference, oh, you know, kill women and children, he's like, yeah,

Dan: Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah, I kill women and children. I'll kill you now. I'm a killer

Sidey: I mean, there's

Dan: I don't give a fuck

Sidey: eight, nine, ten of them, something like that. And he's just stood there.

And little Bill comes forward and... Trying to talk to him, he pulls the trigger, misfire, you're like, oh fuck, and he manages to, he just lobs the shotgun at someone. Guns down little bill

Dan: and then you see this kind of, it's not quite slow mo, but it's

Sidey: It's just probably quite

Dan: of, of people losing control when

Sidey: the thing they taught is the thing he said before it's not how quick, you know, on the draw you are. It's how you, you know, how you handle it. And these guys in a probably what is quite a realistic, panicky situation where you're about to be fucking killed if you don't get yourself together.

And I think he kills three or four really quickly. And a few of them run off. And then Little Bill, he just stopped, everything just stops and he goes to the bar. He looks so fucking badass. Yeah. And has a whiskey, but you can see that Little Bill's not dead and you're like, oh

Pete: little Bill's not dead.

Sidey: well, isn't he?

Yeah, Beauchamp, yeah. And you think, oh no, he's going to fucking get him. He's going to absolutely fucking biographer.

Pete: I think it's, it's, he's having an exchange with the, the, the, with the biographer and, you know, eventually. The biographer's like, look, I'm unarmed and everything, but straight away, he starts

Sidey: trying to get the story. Yeah,

Pete: because that's what he does, he's like, I, I'm, he's just after following a badass, and he think, he thought he had it with English Bob, then he thought he had it with Little Bill, now he's just seen this guy in action, and is like, right, and starts like, asking him questions about like, his past

Sidey: it's time and a

Pete: but, but all the while, you see Little Bill kind of like, Reaching for his gun and, and so on, you think, yeah, is he going to get a cheap shot?

But, yeah, Will's Will's switched onto it, walks over, just steps on his,

Sidey: fucking ruthless.

Pete: his hand and then gets another gun,

Sidey: I think he shot his face

Pete: Yeah, he's like, shoot your face off. So he's like, yeah, he's just pointing it kind of like just under the chin.

Sidey: Yeah, but I thought there was, I thought it might have even raised, he might have seen it raised, his arm raised a little bit.

Anyway, fucking executes him. Think he kills everyone else.

Dan: And they talk a little bit in around the fire previously about a guy who got shot in the face and his teeth just came through the back of his head.

And, you know, did you shoot this? You know, while the kids boasting about how many kids and and how many people he's killed. He's just trying to get some sleep. Well, he's just going, No, no, I don't want to hear any of this. And even Freeman's a little bit. You know, interested in it, but they said, No, I don't want to talk about any of this and they're all talking about remember that time when you came out of the bank and there was like five people around you and he goes, Yeah, I don't know.

And he goes, He said the next day, I think it was seven, wasn't it? It was like, you know, he's going, I still don't want to talk about it. And you just think, He's not even correcting people, like on, he's not proud of any of this, but this moment now, he's not that, he's not that reformed character anymore, he is he

Sidey: from it. He's fucking executed. Quite a few people. A couple have lagged it and are armed, but you can see very, very nervous, like shitting themselves.

And he opens the door to the saloon and says, right, I'm fucking leaving. I. Anyone tries to kill me. I will kill you. I will kill your family. I will kill all of your friends

Dan: And away he goes.

Sidey: And he just gets on his horse and away he goes Unforgiven and he there's a back to the star wars text scroll of the mother in law going to the grave and still Doesn't understand why her Daughter married this fucking lunatic. And then it just says that actually it ends up all right Yeah, just like got the kids and fucked off to San Francisco and made it big in some sort of wholesale Something or other and That was

Dan: ends up alright, you know, he just like, what?

 You know, simple, realistic story of just a badass who went good and then went badass again and then went good again. You know, it's, it's just, he wasn't looking for trouble. He was just looking for a way in which to

Sidey: There's variations on it because there's a John Wayne one, a real classic called The Searchers, where he is the old school kind of cowboy the, I'm going to say Indians even though it's not the

Dan: it's not. Native American.

Sidey: They Capture a girl from a village and he has to go and rescue this girl and it takes it takes fucking like years to find them and the whole thing of that story is that these cowboys, once everything started to move on, they were just left behind. There was no place in the world for them. So that's kind of what you think is going to happen in this.

So the towns are getting built up. People are kind of moved on from this lawless. They're trying to keep guns out and he's just like, no, I'm going to all he knows. He can't farm. All he knows is fucking killing. But then it flips it and says, no, actually, at the end, that was the last he ever did. He went back to family life, but just moved into the

Dan: like, alright. And you just think, that, that person would have just been wandering around with all those stories, all those kind of episodes in their life, going, oh hello, morning, you know, and you think, fuck, he was, he killed,

Sidey: databases in

Dan: yeah, no, that's it.

And well this was hugely successful in the 90s when it came

Sidey: when it came out. 92, it won four Oscars.

Dan: For Oscars and even for then a Western film to start winning Oscars again. It

Sidey: again, it was... Only the third one that's ever won an Oscar.

We can get into it.

Dan: John Wayne would have been the last one on true grit or something

Sidey: have been the last one for Best Picture, Best Director... Best supporting actor for the hack man and the big one best film editing for joel cox old coxie coxie strikes

Dan: Coate. Oh, that's good. That's where Gene Hackman picked up his, his academy Award. Yeah.

Pete: Hackman picked up his, his Academy Award, yeah.

Um, realise, so, I saw it was a 91 film, but it's, it's, it's, it's got the feel of an older film. I know it's obviously set in the, in, you know, all the time, like late 1800s or whatever. But it's got that kind of like, like authenticity about it. That like, it, it, it felt like you were watching it like a true kind of like Western classic, even though I know it was probably made a lot after, after a lot of these, these films would've been made.

And like you say, it's, it's, you know, Clint Eastwood is synonymous with westerns and if this was his last one

Dan: And it was purposely set, I read a little bit about it, it was purposely set at that period where the West was just coming to an end and you had these famous people almost joining entertainment branches and circuses and things at that time because it was dead, you know, it was just stories of the West and Wild Bill Hitchcock and, you know, all those kind of things.

They ended up going on these traveling circus shows and all that kind of thing. And he was obviously never going to be, Will Money was never going to be that kind of character, but he was just your badass sort of guy on the, on the front, had friends, had people, a few friends that, that knew and remembered him and respected him for one way or the other.

But even though he was, you know, for a good woman turned him and, and changed the man. And you thought, well, there's, there was a heart, there was something in it. At the end of the day it was still in him, this kind of murderous spirit.

Sidey: Yeah, weirdly the script was floating around for years in like development hell.

It took 20 years for

Dan: years

Pete: it's a pretty simple

Sidey: I mean, I suppose on the, on the face of it, yeah, a lot of these things are. But once Clint, once, yeah,

Pete: Can't have been a massive budget either, other than the, the, the actors, because you've got some...

Sidey: 4 mil.

Pete: Right. You've got some stellar actors in it. I mean, yeah, like you've got obviously Clint himself and then Gene Freeman and Richard Harris. Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwoods and Richard Harris, all born the same year.

All born 1930.

Sidey: Wow. It took 159 mil, which is good, isn't it? The other two Oscar winning... Westerns, Dances with Wolves, which was just two years before this, and Cimarron in 1931.

Do you want a stat about Clint Eastwood's boots from the film? Yes. They were the same boots, the very same boots that he wore in Rawhide in

Dan: Roarhide!

Sidey: which was his first. Western thing and this is the last book and

Pete: His feet haven't grown in

Sidey: it. They

Dan: haven't grown in all those

Sidey: No, they haven't. It's also allergic to horses.

I always like that stat about Clint. Okay. Yeah. So, strongest possible recommend for me.

Pete: This was a really nice surprise for me as well. Not, not my, like, absolute favourite genre, but I haven't seen a western, or a true western, for a long time. And this, like, hit the mark. It was, it was excellent, brilliant performances. Dunno what happened to the Schofield kid, he just fucking disappeared.

Dan: Yeah, but,

Pete: anyway, who cares? Strong recommend.

Dan: Strong recommend.

Yep, Philip Schofield, not sure what happened to him. But, this is decent.