Rápida e Mortal

A great western by Sam Raimi starring some super power talent in Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone, Leo Di Caprio and Gene Hackman. The cinematography is really good and clearly a homage to The man with no man movies. Direction is crisp and Sam Raimi should be applauded for that. On the cinematography, the great Ebert wrote that it reeks of biblical vengeance. Just watch this for the setting.

Sharon Stone is another gun in the old West town… It seems that she is here to pay off an old score that has haunted her since she was a child… She becomes swept up in a deadly quick-draw contest where anybody can challenge anybody in the windy dusty streets… The fighters must not draw until the clock makes the first chime of the hour… Whoever is standing after the draw is the winner… The prize is $123,000…

The lawless town of Redemption is ruled by a despicable ironfisted gunman called John Herod who takes a lot to scare him… Hackman plays pretty well the kind people hate… He is, here, a fearless, sadistic, cold-blooded killer in charge of everything, who decides who lives or who dies…

Herod wants a preacher in the tournament – even if he has to beat, kick, and knock him to the ground to force him back into it… Cort— humiliated and chained out by the fountain—used to be pretty fast, faster than Herod… But now he wouldn't hurt a fly… He is a man of peace who has renounced violence… Years ago he was an outlaw… In fact, he was only a kid when he hitched up with Herod… He singled him out because he was a little smarter, a little faster than most… Now, he must revert to his former believes to survive…

As Cort, Russell Crowe is saintly when compared to the movie's real villain… Cort tries to redeem himself, but gets enticed into the killing by Herod who is trying to prove that he's a fraud...

Several other men were just running a little errand for Herod… But Herod made an example of them all: the buffoon card shark (Lance Henriksen); the hired gun moseying into town to kill (Keith David); the teenager gunslinger who thinks he is on a different level (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Raimi succeeds through his shots of each gunfighter to show the worried and scared faces of each gunfighter, the clock counting away the time, and Herod's magnified evil smile

"The Quick and the Dead" is a "splatter Western," directed by horror vet Sam Raimi (whose latest, as of this writing, is "Spider-Man," but who cut his teeth on the "Evil Dead" trilogy). It's set in the oh-so-ironically named lawless town of Redemption, a haven of grotesques that gives us an idea what the wild West would've looked like if had been painted, not by Frederic Remington, but by Heironymus Bosch.

In a surfeit of Biblical nomenclature, the town's mayor/owner/capo is named Herod (Gene Hackman at his oiliest, complete with bad hair). Into town there rides a mysterious stranger, not Clint Eastwood this time but Sharon Stone. I'm not the world's biggest Stone fan, but this movie and "Total Recall" indicate that she has her uses in kick-butt action roles that make no demands on her limited thespianic skills. As gunslinger Ellen, she's doubly armed--with a six-shooter, and with an axe to grind; even her "inner child" packs a gun. She enters Herod's to-the-death fast-draw tournament, a no-win, no-exit, potentially no-survivors affair, with an agenda on her mind other than just winning the prize money.

This is an overripe, over-wrought movie, but it mostly works. Raimi all but erases the slim wall between the horror and Western genres: Redemption is another Transylvanian village of simple peasants lorded over by by an evil baron, and the atmosphere--palpably oppressive and claustrophobic--could be cut with a knife. Leonardo di Caprio and veteran character actors Lance Henriksen and Roberts Blossom effectively round out the cast, and the action scenes--exaggerated, mythic, often darkly humorous--deliver. If you're more of a horror fan than a Western fan, this may be the Western for you.

A woman rides into town and finds herself caught-up in shooting duel competition, which fits her agenda for revenge.

Simon Moore's basic story and director Sam Raimi's staging is a homage of sorts to the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone, particularly the Dollars Trilogy. What makes Raimi's Quick and the Dead appealing is the star studded cast and an array of supporting actors including Lance Henriksen, Keith David, Gary Sinise and Pat Hingle... There's really too many to mention.

Moore's revenge/redemption script has a moral core, some heartfelt moments and surprise deaths but essentially it is a series of showdowns. Raimi's offering is not as gritty looking as it could be but it has some nice setups, special effects, explosions and shootouts. Each of the actors have clearly put a lot of effort into handling their weapons, particularly notable is Russell Crowe. The great (now retired) Gene Hackman, a fresh Crowe, a young Leonardo DiCaprio and of course Sharon Stone (who is also one of the producers) to name a few in the lead roles are a joy to watch.

With a fitting score from Alan Silvestri complimenting Raimi's trade mark and snappy camera work, holes in heads, rain storms and the burning sun it adds up to an entertaining enough Western. It's just too glossy and stylized to feel like the classic material it's trying to emulate. Nevertheless, it's still worth viewing for the performances alone.

With The Quick and the Dead, Sam Raimi approaches the old west with a very new/contemporary style. With its brisk energy and competitive characters, the story often feels like a sports movie with lots of photography tricks. If you want a top western, this might not be your film, but if what you seek you is good old pistol-whippin' American fun, this might do the trick.

Thanks to James Cameron, since T2, there has been nothing sexier than a woman with a gun. Sharon Stone actually brings a fairly macho 'Sarah Conner' quality to her character. She plays Ellen, a young cowgirl who rides into a mysterious town for a very special event, a gunslinging competition. The mayor of the town is a dangerous fella and one of the most feared gunslingers around. It is this man who Ellen is after. The question is, why? In order to fight him, she must beat everyone else in the competition. There will be blood, for sure.

In order to make up for his superficial plot, Sam Raimi has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. One of his most recognizable through his career is going over the top in an amusing way, which he does here too, mostly at the climax. He doesn't make great movies, but he makes clever and entertaining ones, which this is.