The Quick and the Dead (1995)

It's a standard western shoot-em-up done up with a modern feminist twist. Gun fighters and lowlifes from all over the West head to the town of Redemption for a gunfight competition put on by the town's evil and corrupt leader, Herod, played by Gene Hackman.This movie is worth it just for Hackman's presence. He puts on an over the top performance as John Herod who proudly controls the very lives of the townspeople, and he's the deadliest shot of all- a man a lot of people would like to kill, especially Sharon Stone who comes to Redemption to settle an old score. Along the way she meets Russell Crowe, a real deal killer himself who's since reformed into a preacher. Sam Raimi gave this movie his usual great visual style, so you won't even notice most of the time that you're watching what's really an old movie, replete with every stock western character you ever saw. Some have said that The Quick and the Dead is really style over substance, and that's probably true. But if you're a fan of classic westerns, you'll like the fast pace & familiar characters.The only problem with this movie is the final resolution between Lady (Sharon Stone) and Herod. It's not too much of a secret in a movie like this that she finally puts a slug into the bad guy's chest at the end. They set her up as the mysterious gun fighter with an unknown motivation (although the audience gets told what it is), and Herod is the impossibly fast natural born killer that nobody can beat. Their confrontation is inevitable. However, the writers don't give you much to tell you that Lady has any chance in a gunfight against Herod. He should have blown her head right off. They should have set her up as a lightning fast natural with power handed down from her lawman father or foreshadow some type of secret edge over Herod. But we never really get that, so we have to assume she got him with just a lucky good-triumphs-over-evil bullet. If you can overlook that defect, you'll enjoy The Quick and the Dead.

If you're not a fan of westerns, you might like this one. If you are a fan of westerns, you'll probably like this one. I felt compelled to write a review of a film like this as I was curious to see its' IMDb rating since I learned a lot of critics picked on it, and I always find it very entertaining whenever I watch it. I also just watched Django Unchained and that reminded me of this in some ways.Any time you get Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, Gary Sinise, and several other lesser known but very good familiar faces in a cast, it is always going to be worth the watch as far as entertainment. That alone makes this a good film, but what makes it even better is they are all really giving their all and deliver good performances in this.This is before Crowe became as popular as he did and it's intriguing to see him in one of his first roles. Still, watching this when it came out, I remember thinking that this actor was good even though I never heard of him. Gene Hackman is awesome in this. He really carries the movie. I'm a huge Gene Hackman fan, and if you are too, you'll see he's all in on top of his game here.I thought Sharon Stone was good in this, and the whole plot I found satisfyingly original in that it centered around her character. Most westerns are the usual, but this put a female in the lead role and that was new and different in a good way. Some people criticize her acting/character from what I've read in some reviews, but it didn't bother me at all. I thought she was bad-a-- when she came back at the end.I was too busy having fun watching the shootouts. I found this whole "setup" incredibly fun, original, and entertaining. Most westerns are good guys versus bad guys or outlaws versus bad guys, but this is based on a tournament with all of these colorful characters with crazy names and identities. It's just really entertaining and fun to watch.The one thing about this movie is that it's one of those that is supposed to be so serious that it makes you laugh. You have to have a sense of humor for it to enjoy. It's a sick sense of humor thing. For example, Gene Hackman's character is crazy, but it's funny at the same time. There are some aspects (one in particular) that are unrealistic, but they're pretty funny in a similar way.I would mention I liked DiCaprio in this and thought it was one of his best roles. He really played the cocky kid to perfection and the whole thing with him and Hackman's character was good and showed how cruel Hackman was. It's crazy. This is just pure fun entertainment, and it's very underrated. I just saw Django Unchained and I like the Q & D better as far as westerns go. It didn't have as much depth and substance of Django, but that's what makes it great. It is a bang, bang, shoot em up action western with over the top performances.

Peculiar Western with spectacular gun battle between Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman . The title "The Quick and the Dead" comes from the King James translation of the Bible, I Peter 4:5, which admonishes the believer from behaving like pagans, "who shall give account to Christ that is ready to judge the quick and the dead" . This violent Western is set on a township called Redemption , the star is a mysterious female revenger , ¨a woman without name¨ (Sharon Stone as Clint Eastwood-alike interloper) who has a secret agenda of her own . It deals about a gunfighter arriving a little town , it has the usual shops and buildings, as General merchandise, Livery stable, boarding house , Hardware , Barber shop, Saloon , Hotel and Church . The western town owned by a ruthless gunslinger (Gene Hackman) hosting an elimination tournament to find the fastest gun in the West , as Lady avenger comes to the aid of embattled citizens as well as searching vendetta . The excitement starts at the duel when the hands point straight up .This offbeat Western contains thrills , parody , black comedy , hilarious set-pieces , and breathtaking duels . This special Western picture concerns upon a deadly gun-battle pits two individualist characters and it results to be an enjoyable as well as hyperbolic homage to the style and vengeance fantasy of Sergio Leone Spaghettis ; as it takes parts from ¨Dollars trilogy¨ : ¨For a fistful of dollars¨, ¨For a fistful of dollars more¨ and ¨The good , the bad and the ugly¨, along with ¨Once upon a time in the West¨. But it has nothing to do with the Spaghetti maestro , the great Sergio Leone . There is also an impressive roaring climax with an amazing final showdown . All of the actors on the set in the gunfight scenes were instructed in the art of the quick draw by a stunt coordinator . The violent gun-play is heightened by a slick , often amazing use of F.X. , plenty of blood and gore . However , the film is pretty well but it doesn't work at all and packs endless close-ups, sluggish scenes , flaws , gaps and many scenes reveal nothing . So many good actors , such excellent actors as Kevin Conway , Keith David , Lance Henriksen , Pat Hingle ,Gary Sinise , Mark Boone Junior , Robert Blossom's last role in a theatrical feature and final film by Woody Strode who appears briefly as a coffin maker in the opening scene . And Russell Crowe's first American feature, he has a hot sex scene with Sharon , but director Sam Raimi decided that it wasn't a necessary part of the story , the scene was not included in the American release of the film, but international versions do include it. The lion's share of the acting meat deservedly goes to Gene Hackman as an unrepentantly nasty . And a very young Leonard DiCaprio is surprisingly effective as a rookie gunslinger .Exciting and fitted to action musical score by Alan Silvestri . Colorful as well as evocative cinematography by Dante Spinotti .The motion picture was well produced by Sharon Stone . Sharon was given a lengthy list of directors that had been approved to direct this film, so that she could choose the directors she thought would work , Sharon sent back a list with a single name , Sam Raimi ; she said it was because she liked Evil Dead and Army of Darkness , among Raimi's other works.

Yes, I know the critics at the time panned it. But if that was the baseline for greatness, films like Wonderful Life and Citizen Kane would be lost to obscurity. Bottom line, this is a "high concept" film that is much more entertaining than you would guess. The timeline is fascinating. In the 1960s, after a half-century run, and massive exposure on the new medium called Television, the classic western started to disappear. But, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum; and at the same time the sun started to set on the traditional western, it started to rise on something called the "italian westerns" or re-imaginings of the genre from Europe. This is for example how Clint Eastwood went from forgotten TV actor (Rawhide) to #1 box office attraction. This new genre lasted barely 15 years or so and soon disappeared as well. Yet out of nowhere, 20 years later someone in Tinseltown gets the idea to re-imagine the ALREADY RE-IMAGINED western, this time starring a female. Sharon Stone was past the apex of her career by this point, making the project more of a challenge. The other talent was awesome. A pre-Oscar Russell Crowe, a pre-Titanic diCaprio, and all backstopped by Hackman, I mean, wow. The big question, did it actually work? Answer yes. It was uneven in parts and an argument could be made that Hackman overdid the "bad guy" role or, alternatively, the part was over-written. Stone was awesome, proving she had the chops to take on a bizarre role and make it hers. Actually gets better with each successive viewing.