- Title: The Quick and the Dead
- IMDb: link
Sam Raimi knows how to make a B-movie. While 1995’s The Quick and the Dead was seen as both a critical and box office failure, Raimi’s revisionist western has earned some respect over the years coming to be classified as a cult classic. Sharon Stone stars as The Lady, a gunfighter who arrives in the town of Redemption to enter a gunfighting competition. However, her true motives lie more with an undisclosed vendetta against the town’s owner John Herod (Gene Hackman) than winning any competition.
Raimi plays with the building blocks of the western, stuffing the movie full of traditional western characters while centering story of our Lady playing against classic type from beginning to end while slowly revealing the truth behind the revenge story driving her actions. Our Lady’s past will be slowly revealed through a series of flashbacks showing more and more of her childhood and what Herod stole from her. The result is a quite enjoyable spaghetti western, enhanced by the score of Alan Silvestri.
Along with our Lady and the villainous Herod, we also get the brash and talented illgitimate son of Herod known locally as “The Kid” (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Swede (Sven-Ole Thorsen), an escaped convict (Mark Boone Junior), a professional (Keith David) hired by the townsfolk to kill Herod, a Native American (Jonothon Gill), an overconfident cheat (Lance Henriksen), a local degenerate (Kevin Conway), a Texan (Josef Rainer), and Cort (Russell Crowe) a former gunman turned preacher who Herod forces into the competition for his own amusement.
Hackman is in proper scene-chewing villainy including his version of justice against Ace (for claiming Herod’s kills) and his various motivations to get his old friend into the contest such as his “generous” offer to buy Cort a gun. DiCaprio is having a blast as the young upstart whose ego eventually costs him everything. And Crowe is an interesting addition as the unwilling gunfighter who eventually finds a way to earn some redemption. The film, however, is all Stone’s who balances the wounded soul with The Lady murderous plans. Stone has rarely looked better on film, in part thanks to the cinematography by Dante Spinotti in framing scenes that work both as a western and something more.
While it may not have been seen as a success at the time of its release, The Quick and the Dead has garnered new fans over the years while managing to stay in print for nearly 30 years. The film has been released on home video several times over the years including VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K. It’s also currently available for rental and purchase on multiple streaming platforms.
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