Bullet Points: The Quick and the Dead

Sam Raimi is a massive fan of movies. I think you have to be in order to have the career he has had but Raimi has always stood out to me since all of his movies feel like love letters to other pieces of cinema. The Quick and the Dead has a certain style to it that doesn’t lend itself to the classic Westerns, but it just feels so right. It checks all the boxes for what a great Western should have; the revenge, the gun-slinging, the high noon shootouts. It gets it all right and it’s about time that people start to recognize that The Quick and the Dead is a top 3 Western of the 1990’s.

Synopsis: A female gunfighter returns to a frontier town where a dueling tournament is being held, which she enters in an effort to avenge her father’s death.

• The Cast of Casts: The first thing you notice as the opening credits roll is just how amazing the cast is for The Quick and the Dead. Sharon Stone headlines along with Gene Hackman, but secondary actors like Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio help to add some depth to what could have easily been just a redemption story. Oh yeah, the movie also features some amazing work from guys like Tobin Bell, Kevin Conway, Keith David, Pat Hingle, Lance Henriksen, Mark Boone Junior, and Arnie’s friend Sven-Ole Thorsen.
• Shoot’em up: We meet Ellen (Sharon Stone) and quickly learn that she’s on her way to a small town with a tournament style gun battle about to happen. Most of the early parts of the movie is meeting all the participants of the tournament through their deeds and actions. They’re all differing levels of terrible. Rapists, escaped convicts, entertainers, and hired guns. The rest of the movie plays out through the characters so let’s try something new….
• Herod: Gene Hackman plays John Herod. He’s the man who puts on the tournament each year and he’s possibly the fastest draw and worst of the bunch. We learn that he killed Ellen’s dad when she was just a little girl, setting this entire movie in motion just by being the asshole that he is. Hackman plays the character with a certain energy that showed me that he was wearing down a bit but didn’t want to make it seem that way. He’s all about the spectacle. It’s part of the reason he needs Cort in the tourney (to prove he’s not the only terrible guy in town) and a major reason why he’s willing to allow Ellen to hang around.

• Cort: Russell Crowe plays the former outlaw/current preacher Cort. He once rode with Herod and was his protégé. After murdering a priest at the request of Herod, he turned his back to the outlaws he rode with and became a man of the cloth. It didn’t last long, however, as Herod had found him and forced him into the tournament. Cort and Ellen bond during the film, delivering plenty of exposition along with some good lines and a great head of hair.
• The Kid: It wasn’t until Leo was in Blood Diamond that I finally came to the realization that he was awesome. I didn’t care for him in Gangs of New York and The Beach was weird enough that I didn’t go crazy over it, but Blood Diamond showed me that he wasn’t the pansy that I assumed he was. The Kid is the supposed illegitimate son of Herod and the cockiest S.O.B. in the town. He’s good, though, and he brings a great amount of innocence to the character being that he has never been able to earn the respect of what he perceives as his father.

• Ace, Sarge, and the rest: The rest of the tournament is full of all the stereotypes of the Wild West characters that you would want in a gun fight. Keith David plays a hired gun brought in from the savings of the poor townsfolk to rid them of the evil Herod. Lance Henriksen is the Criss Angel of gunmanship. And many of the other notable actors are just a mixture of amazing characters whose time is numbered. It’s exactly what is needed in a movie like this.
• Ellen the shootist: Sharon Stone is the main character but she never felt like the star to me. Hackman rules the movie but it isn’t until the end of it that you truly realize how bad Stone’s character has had it and why she’s willing to ride into hell to get her vengeance. The story really comes full circle (as you probably expected) and it’s done with the usual Sam Raimi comic violence and unique camera shots that you would have also expected. It’s a marvelous showing for Stone and crew.

You. Me. Dawn. Bonus Bullet Points:

• “How do you spell that?”  “Correctly”.
• I hated Leonardo back in these days but looking back he was fantastic. He was possibly my favorite character.
• The dilemma on whether Cort will draw is the best thing about the first third of the movie. They could have easily dropped in another flashback to show how bad of a guy he was but his story about the priest and the way that Hackman looks at him is enough to tell you that he was a protégé of his gone rogue.
• Why are all those people standing behind the ones in the gunfight? Are they insane?

The Verdict: You can probably tell by now that I love this movie. I think it’s one of the most underrated Westerns of the last 30 years. It’s incredible to think that it was made over 20 years ago because I still see so many of the actors bouncing around in movies that I watch but there is no doubt that Leo was just a young buck in this movie and this movie was at the very early point of Russell Crowe’s career. If it has been a while since you’ve seen it then I would recommend you jump on HULU and watch it soon. It doesn’t require much skin in the game as far as attention or emotional commitment goes, and you’re guaranteed to find at least one actor that you like.