Unforgiven

Unforgiven, exactly what Little Bill was in the end, as well as the two women cutters. Despite the alpha male character, Clint Eastwood's William Munny, being as ruthless as any traditional cowboy at the end of the movie when he kills five men, he is still different from traditional alpha male cowboys in his ways. His partner, Ned, also shows he is quite unlike the traditional cowboy. Due to the changing behavior of the alpha male cowboy and the nontraditional occurrences in Unforgiven, the film is considered a revisionist western. The film turns away from the long-standing plot structure and traditional scenes of the Western. In this revisionist film a viewer will not find a cowboy living off the land for very long periods of time, instead the cowboys receive food and hospitality from prostitutes. There is no stand off in the end, no structured duel, only Clint Eastwood's character walking into the saloon gun's blazing.

In term's of Clint Eastwood's character, William Munny himself, a viewer sees a new type of alpha male cowboy. In the beginning of the film Munny is a dirty, old pig farmer, who admits to being changed by a woman, his deceased wife. When Munny is offered a job which would bring him back to his old ways, he at first declines, which at first was not all that surprising. What was surprising for an alpha male character was that when he did decide to take the job, he went straight to his old partner's house. A partner? For an alpha male cowboy? The Schofield Kid was also surprised and put off by this. He rebuked Munny's idea of bringing a partner along, but Munny refused to work without him. This partner, Morgan Freeman's character Ned, was no ordinary cowboy either. The first night the three cowboy's set up camp, Ned is already complaining about missing his wife and his bed. A traditional cowboy has no problems sleeping on the ground and being on the road. At least the three of them still drink whiskey to get by on this trip right? Wrong. Will refuses to even drink. In addition to refusing booze, at least until the last scene, he turns down sex in town as well. He even refuses to have free sex from a prostitute, which a typical, traditional cowboy would have accepted. Like the cowboys in The Searchers, a typical cowboy does not quit or give up once he has a goal in mind. Ned quits the mission after just firing a couple shots. He turns around to go home, which then results in his capture and eventual demise. In William's revenge toward Little Bill, he shows no honor. Instead he shoots an unarmed man who he had never met, the saloon owner. The two main cowboys and the way the film plays out makes this film a revisionist Western.