Where I Watched it: HBo MAX

English Audio Description?: no

Again, just attempting to fill in some gaps i recognize of movies I should have seen already. unfortunately, despite Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece being an Oscar favorite, it lacks audio description. So my journey was pretty much all for naught.

Unlike my last two entries, which while they should have audio description to fill in the many gaps I ran into, were dialogue heavy, Eastwood’s revenge pic is decidedly atmospheric in nature and not known for a saturation of dialogue. There was enough that I could stumble through it, much like falling down a hill is technically one way you can get to the bottom, it’s just not the preferred way.

you lost a lot of the directorial choices of Eastwood, who despite every Cry Macho to the contrary, is a pretty solid and intentional director. And for an individual who came up in westerns, i can only begin to imagine the advantage he takes here to capture the landscape that launched his career. But the suspense of the gunfights, the horseback riding, and even the journey back in time are all lost on a blind audience without audio description. I think there’s so much focus on making sure that all the new content created has audio description that studios aren’t looking at their libraries for appropriate titles to apply audio description. essentially, which are those films that seem to be transcending that “test of time”. I think Unforgiven has done that.

I enjoyed the performances all around, but there was a special place in my heart for Gene Hackman here, as he hasn’t starred in a movie since 2004. I’m sure he’s enjoying his retirement, I’m just not enjoying all the performances of his we could have had. He’s a tremendous talent, and while playing the good guy is totally possible for him, he does make for a truly exceptional criminal mastermind.

But, despite the acting and the score being solid, this was a bit of a tough cookie to get through without audio description, and I honestly couldn’t recommend it to another visually impaired individual in its current state. I know I missed things, so I’m not sure what my grade would be. But for now…

FINAL GRADE: Unwatchable