Delayed Reaction: The Quick and the Dead

Premise: An eclectic group of Westerners compete in a quick draw competition.

 

This movie is awesome.

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Oh, you expected more? I suppose I could do that, but I think I covered it all above. Where to begin? This movie is rad. No, that's pretty much saying the same thing. I had a blast watching this. No, that's not descriptive.

 

It shouldn't be a surprise that I'd be into this movie. I'm a white male in my 30s, so any attempt to get away from loving Westerns is a losing battle. It's coming for me, and by the time I'm 50, I'm sure I'll have a theory about how John Wayne was the only real movie star. I'm a fan of Sam Rami, especially when he brings his eye to genre films. The fact that I love Warrior so much should clue you into the fact that I love a tournament setup as a premise for a movie. Then there's a cast featuring Sharon Stone in peak badass mode, post-Unforgiven era Gene Hackman, hotshot young Leonardo DiCaprio, and the US debut of Russell Crowe. I'm going to say that I must've been confusing this with Tombstone all these years, because otherwise, there's no excuse for it to take me this long to see this movie.

 

A well-deployed tournament is a great structure for a movie with a large cast. Each match has its own narrative, making the movie almost play like an anthology. If the characters are fleshed out enough, then everyone in the audience will have attachments to different characters. So, say, when Hackman kills DiCaprio, the audience feels the loss. Granted, it only works in specific scenarios. In this, Sam Rami had to set up a heightened world where it doesn't seem that weird for 16 gunslingers to open themselves to death so casually. It's pretty obvious to me that this movie is what got Rami the Spider-Man job. The Quick and the Dead is a comic book movie, even if it isn't based on a comic and doesn't have heroes with superpowers.

 

I'm excited, because I think I may finally get over my Sharon Stone face-blindness after this. I've seen her in a lot of movies, but I'm awful at recognizing her. Normally when I try, I end up imagining Robin Wright instead. I think it might stick this time. Also, I forgot how much I miss Gene Hackman. It's still so odd to me that he actually did retire. He's been out of movies for 16 years (since Welcome to Mooseport), and we really haven't heard from him at all. I wonder if he and Dennis Franz are having pool parties somewhere that Jack Nicholson shows up to on occasion.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend