20 - The Quick and The Dead

Connection To NIGHTMARES - Lance Henriksen

After watching Nightmares it was supposed to lead onto Maximum Overdrive, per the Emilio Estevez connection, and You Tube had it on ready and all planned but in the meantime it was took off which as taught me a lesson not to plan too far ahead and just take it has it comes, there is a list of stuff I have saved with possible connections but I think that has taught me not to stay so close to that.

Anyway I digress, so that brings me up to the second western in as many days - Sam Raimi's 1995 The Quick and The Dead. This is the first time I've seen it since the 90's (when I was a teenager) and you know what I really bloody enjoyed this.

I was a would-be filmmaker at one point and this is the sort of western I would have come up with if I had the chance, I mean that more not about the plot or anything but it's certainly a western influenced by the western film rather then historical if this sentence makes sense.

The motive of Sharon Stone's character is straight out of Once Upon A Time In The West and that of Harmonica (the reveal scenes are very similar) but even though she is the de-facto star it feels more like an ensemble piece ( 2 of the co-stars Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio where not a-list yet) and it sort of feels like characters inspired from other westerns all mixed together and see if it works - which it does.

Gene Hackman is the bastard bad guy, who holds an annual dueling competition likely in some points to get rid of potential rivals and to show the townsfolk who fear him how dangerous he is, he as the old Freudian excuse which works in showing how much of a cold bastard he is.

The two main support are the future stars - Crowe and DiCaprio -this was Crowe's first US movie (and wouldn't be embarrassing like what was coming up soon for him - Virtiousity) and DiCaprio had the success already of an Oscar Nom for Gilbert Grape and some other well received films both are great in their roles, Crowe as the Reverend who was once part of Hackman's gang forced into the competition and DiCaprio as the Kid, cocky and the son of Hackman.

There's also some cool supporting players such as Keith David and Lance Henriksen, who both have their moments and considering how many duels are in this movie, none of them are ever boring, one even including a cool shot shown from the back of a bullet going right through a head.

Overall a fun western, I don't know if purest will dislike it but for me it was really well done with great characters and performances and it never has a dull moment.