Originally Reviewed
Saturday August 12, 2006
We really haven't had a good enjoyable western since the days of Clint Eastwood and his rough and tumble exterior, but somewhere in the midst of wannabe revivals lays a nice little gem which takes the most enjoyable part of westerns and centers an entire film around it with a great cast of actors.
The Quick and the Dead stars Sharon Stone as Ellen, her rough past and the thirst for revenge has brought her back to the town of Redemption where she had once grown up as a child and the daughter of the Marshall. She has returned to salvage what little of a life she has left by ending the life of the man who originally crippled hers... John Herod.
John Herod (Gene Hackman) is a low life criminal who has made a fortune by robbing people of their lively hood. Herod now owns the town of Redemption and takes whatever he wants from the remaining skeletons of the people in the small town. Ellen's goal of revenge happens to fall right within the time of Herod's annual quick-draw contest, one which offers a prize of $230,000 and the glory of the title of fastest gun in the west. Unfortunately for everyone else Herod is a pretty fast draw, and the competition becomes more of pure entertainment for him as it looks like there is no one quick enough to stop him, except of course his old friend Court.
Court (Russell Crowe) had been apart of Herod's gang in his younger years, but grew sick of Herod's slaughtering of incident people, so he left the gang and became a preacher in hopes of atoning for his past sins. But Herod never forgot Court, nor truly believed he would completely turn his back on his gift of shooting. So Herod forcibly brings in Court and enters him into the contest against his will, he will either participate or die. Court and Ellen appear to be the only two who have any chance of ending Herod's reign of terror on the town, yet can a beaten preacher, and a troubled woman still terrorized by the memories of the past have the courage and the strength to defeat the self proclaimed fastest gun in the west?
I'm a huge Russell Crowe fan and for me this film is a big treat, it's not a usual role for Russell Crowe, it’s a pity he hasn't done more westerns because he really does a great job. My favorite scene is near the end where Court picks off two guys on rooftops with some awesome gun slinging. What I like most about this film is it's highly entertaining and isn't incredibly long. It takes a rather simple plot adds in the mysterious past of Ellen to keep you interested, and has a lot of very entertaining fight scenes.
The cast of characters is rather impressive as Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman and Leonardo Di Caprio lead the way, followed by a handful of some other well recognized supporting actors. The story is well written, the acting is good, and it's one of my top 10 favorite westerns of all-time!
9/10
I don't know why, but I somehow always connect this movie with THE BAD GIRLS, probably because those two films have marked the return of westerns in Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteFor me, 1994. was the year when Sharon still hadn't lost it, Russell was still likable, and Leo's presence could have been tolerated :)
Actually the film came out in 1995 (I just fixed the date, that's what I get for using Rotten Tomatoes as a legitimate source of info!), but I'll have the disagree with you highly on the Russell Crowe comment, because up to this point in time Russell Crowe was a complete unknown. Before this film everything he did was Australian filmed and based. So to say he was still likable doesn't make much sense when practically no one outside Australia knew of him. I'd say Crowe really didn't become recognizable until 1997 with LA Confidential.
ReplyDeleteHmmm a 9? I know you like Russell Crowe, but..... To be honest when I was a kid and they would play this on tv late at night I found a meh way to pass the time. I think it could have helped itself by going for a little less style (at least not piled on, a few scenes, like the insane zoom in on the same two people 50 times sequence) and a couple less characters (as much as I like Lance Henrikson and Keith David they're basically just introduced for quick fodder).
ReplyDeleteOverall though, I dunno. If I had to re-review it'd prob get about a 5 from me.
@Univarn - you're feelings don't really surprise me. You loved Once Upon A Time In The West, a film that consists of 45 minutes of people staring at each other, that bores me, Westerns in general that drag out a story with non essential, overdone dramatics and horse riding scenes bore me. This film packs everything great about a Western into a concise format. Sure it's a little corny, but it doesn't drag out a simplistic plot for two and a half hours!
ReplyDeleteI think it's just a difference of desires. You seem to enjoy the instantness of the action, the gunshot and the moments leading just before it. While I, way on the other end, enjoy the buildup, and what leads to the ultimate gunshot far more than the actual event.
ReplyDeleteI said that he was still likable FOR ME :) I started disliking him after he got worldwide famous. Before that, he had acted in smaller movies and I liked his appearance and charisma. But that was all before his real personality came on surface.
ReplyDeleteps I must admit I agree with everything you said in your comment to Ryan :)
@Univarn - I wouldn't say that's true, I just don't like being dragged along. Build up is fine, but there's a point where build up becomes less intensive and more annoying. It's like something pausing for a couple minutes in the middle of a joke before delivering the punchline.
ReplyDelete@Dezmond - okay, I misunderstood, I thought you meant in your opinion Russell isn't likable in general (meaning to most people). Crowe gets a bad wrap, he's lost his temper a couple times, who doesn't! But he was genially sorry and as of the last couple years I haven't heard of him repeating it.
Personally I like the guy from what I have seen, I especially like that he's not into the Hollywood crowd, he does his job and then goes home to his family. He's not out there telling us how we should think, spend our money and everything else Hollywood thinks they have the right to tell us.
Your first sentence made me think about other westerns that have come out since clint eastwood's time besides The Quick and the Dead that are worth a watch. Most recently I really enjoyed 3:10 to Yuma, which also had Russell Crowe in it. Not only is it one of the great westerns, in my opinion, but it makes you think quite a bit about morality. In Yuma, Crowe's character has depth that is rarely seen in westerns I think.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely worth a watch.
@Casey - yea I've seen and reviewed 3:10 To Yuma, great film. I didn't mention it in this review because I actually wrote this review many years prior to Yuma's release. But 3:10 To Yuma would definitely be in my top 10 Westerns as well. I think even Univarn would enjoy that one.
ReplyDeleteNice. I figured you'd probably seen it. Your blog has a lot of depth. Tombstone was another relatively recent western that I enjoyed, except for the whole romance thread between kurt russell and that drug addict lady. But i just loved val kilmer and michael behn's roles in it.
ReplyDelete@Casey - well I'll add Tombstone to my list and feature it sometime on a future Western Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know how I follow and like show bizz in Australia and New Zealand, and in the 90's especially, as a teenager, I was very much informed about their movies, music and TV shows. That's why I had known about Kate Winslet, Guy Pierce, Toni Collette, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and a whole bunch of their TV actors a long time before they became world wide famous.
ReplyDeletei sometimes have difficulty getting all the way through this film. the scenes that lack russell just seem too contrived and camp for me. the lady is too unrelentingly hard; herrod is almost a comic book character; and the kid is just silly. and why, oh why did the u.s. censors decide we poor americans couldn't stomach the deleted brothel scene? that's the best part of the whole film!
ReplyDelete@becks - I've never seen the unedited version, I know the UK DVD version is the unedited, but it's actually 4 minutes shorter than the US cut. I have the US cut on Blu-ray, if I can get the UK Blu-ray cut cheap I might buy it.
ReplyDeleteif she still has it, darrin at http://www.constantcrowe.com/ had the deleted scene available.
ReplyDeleteAny idea why this cut of the film is actually shorter? I was looking on the UK's Amazon and they have it on Blu-ray but it's actually 4 minutes shorter than the US cut.
ReplyDelete