1. William Munny – Unforgiven
Westerns have given us so many heroes, anti-heroes and Badasses. In the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Lee Van Cleef was “the Bad”. In the Wild Bunch we had a whole crowd of tough-as-old-boots gun slingers and True Grit has given us two films with two Badasses apiece. But Clint Eastwood is in many ways the definitive big screen Badass and with everyone from Dirty Harry, through Josey Wales and Walt Kowalski featuring on his resume, we really ought to find space for him.
William Munny has killed just about everything that ever walked or crawled at one point or another and he is in town for one last job – a gun for hire responding to a plea for justice from a prostitute who has been cut up. Yes, he is old and craggy, but we are left in no doubt as to his credentials, reputation and skills – a vicious and ruthless killer who goes from killing for money to exacting revenge on an equally vicious and ruthless sheriff. Although he seems to need a drink inside him to bring out his best, the sheer efficiency with which he takes out a fairly packed room at the finale is Badassdom at its best, a fitting end to a career built on gun-slingers.
