The Quick and the Dead

Now I saw this in the cinema in 1995 and had somehow managed to completely forget all about it - until I saw it again just last week and realised why. It's not that it is awful, it's just that it is so very derivative and very, very dependant on Gene Hackman ("Herod") who walks a fine line between menace and ham in a none too convincing fashion. He is running a to-the-death gun slinging competition - almost like one of the chivalric jousts of old - with the winner having to face him in the final shoot-out for an huge poke. Sharon Stone ("Ellen") arrives in his dingy town just at the start of the process determined to avenge her father's killer; Russell Crowe is "Cort", a preacher who also has a pretty violent past and "the Kid" (Leonardo di Caprio) who has the clear belief that his youth and skill make him all but immortal are all coaxed, cajoled and threatened into participating in this game of death. Sam Raimi has all the ingredients of a great little western adventure, but the cast don't work well together at all. Stone is well past her potent best and the usual guy-with-a-grudge theme is now so hackneyed as to render this little better than a series of gunfights with characters about whom I could not care less. The cinematography and some of the photographic styles are interesting, though - the film has a classy look to it and Alan Silvestri creates some tension with his slightly untypical (for a western) score; but the whole is nowhere near the sum of the parts leaving us with something that now, more than ever, just looks like it's been made for telly.

**_Mythic Western about a quick-draw contest in a town with an all-star cast_** Sharon Stone stars as a grim, nonchalant woman who, curiously, enters a dueling contest in a remote Southwest desert town "ruled" by outlaw Herod (Gene Hackman). A pacifist preacher is forced by Herod to participate in the contest, but he ain't no conventional minister (Russell Crowe). Other notables include: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lance Henriksen, Tobin Bell, Keith David, Gary Sinise and Pat Hingle. "The Quick and the Dead" (1995) was co-produced by Stone and she was responsible for getting the youthful & skinny DiCaprio in the cast, she even paid his salary (?!). Stone also apprehended New Zealander Crowe with this being his first American feature. When dressed in her tight leather pants Sharon was unable to sit down (lol). Interestingly, she fired her hottie stand-in because she was getting more attention from the crew on set (!). She later confessed that Crowe was her favorite on screen kisser, but kissing DiCaprio was like kissing her arm (lol). The tone is mythic in the manner of those spaghetti Westerns of the 60s, but with superior production values and obviously seminal to Tarantino Westerns ("Django Unchained" and "The Hateful Eight"). While the vibe isn't exactly realistic, the cast members take the material seriously and ham it up with gusto. You can tell they all had a great time. The movie's town bound and comic booky with larger-than-life characters, but it's not campy or comedic, although it's somewhat silly. The film's title is presumably taken from 1 Peter 4:5 of the KJV translation of the Bible, which details how Christ "is ready to judge the quick and the dead." The phrase also appears in the Apostle's Creed with the same meaning. In both cases 'quick' is an Old English term for "living." The movie's title clearly plays off both the modern and archaic meanings in that there are two kinds of gunfighters in the Old West: those who are quick (that is, fast and alive) and those who are dead. It runs 1 hour, 47 minutes, and was shot completely in Arizona (including Old Tucson). GRADE: B+