In this week’s Two Cents, we grab our guns and hope we’re fast enough in Sam Raimi’s off-kilter spaghetti western.
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: The Quick and the Dead (1995)
Our Women of the West series continues with Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead, his riff on spaghetti westerns that combines the high stakes of that genre with his kinetic camera work and taste for madcap lunacy. Produced and starring Sharon Stone, the film boasts an amazing cast: Gene Hackman, Russell Crow, Leonardo DiCaprio, and yes a Bruce Campbell appearance. A western truly unlike any other, and one that definitely highlights our theme for the week.
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Brad Milne
In 1994 Sam Raimi made a wonderfully preposterous film set in the fictional town of Redemption, during the old west called The Quick And The Dead. The movie starred Sharon Stone, as well as young upstarts Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio, and surrounded with a murderers row of character actors, including Keith David, Pat Hingle, Tobin Bell, Lance Henricksen, Mark Boone Junior, and Gary Sinese, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s running buddy LaFors himself Sven-Ole Thorsen, and capped off by screen legend Gene Hackman.
Last night was my second time watching The Quick And The Dead, and one of the things I appreciated most is the fact that it is in no way a modern take on the genre. It’s a film that feels right at home if it had been made in the genres heyday, the film stock just looks newer.
Hackman is the excellent in the film playing a corrupt and while not evil in human form, he is definitely a no good son of a bitch content on making the lives of the towns citizens a near unbearable struggle. His Harrod is the mayor of Redemption and as the blind shoe shine boy explains in an exposition dump that he gets 50 cents of every dollar.
Stone’s gunslinger arrives under the guise of a contest to win 123,000 dollars, but her real mission as we learn through a series of flashbacks is vengeance. Stone acquits herself well enough but occasionally feeling miscast. She is aided on her quest for righteous vengeance by Crowe’s former outlaw turned preacher Cort who at one time ran with Harrod’s cruel gang of outlaws.
The film nearly follows a familiar formula, but it diverges slightly, with some misdirection in the part of the Doc Wallace played with a kindly bedside manner by Robert Blossom’s. The showdown is set for Cort to get a chance at exacting revenge on Harrod. In a bombastic outburst of explosions Stone’s Ellen was hit actually shot down, and is able to satisfy her vengeance.
Raimi directed the film with the skill of a master craftsman. Trading in his usual scares for a the shoot em up fun of story that wouldn’t feel out of place in the heyday of the Western. At times, a humorous but, nonetheless, entertaining take on the tried and true genre.
(@BradMilne79 on X)
The Team
Having been a fan of both Sharon Stone and Sam Raimi, I’m not sure how The Quick and the Dead eluded me for so many years. Part of the reason, I suspect, was because it represented a time in both artists’ careers when they were seen as trying desperately to break away from the types of projects which helped make them names within the industry. It’s for this reason that I never saw Stone’s prison drama Last Dance or Raimi’s baseballl offering, For Love of the Game. It’s not that I have anything against artists venturing into new territory, but rather it’s when such moves feel more strategic than artistic that a cinephile can’t help but become sketpical.
Thankfully this is far from the case for The Quick and the Dead. Not only does Raimi manage to hold his own in this new genre, but he injects it with such electricity and vitality, it’s almost impossible to be anything but riveted. Naturally, a handful of western tropes show themselves here, but Raimi’s approach to them feels fresh and the way he weaves them into the plot (itself hard to dismiss thanks to its stellar architecture) is pure storytelling magic.
But the draw of this film (apart from what may be one of my new favorite Gene Hackman performances) upon release was Sharon Stone. Watching her take on everything her character is faced with and very rarely drop her steely gaze results in one of the most intriguing and compelling western movie heroines that ever existed. The commitment from the actress is there in every scene and both her and Raimi make sure that Ellen’s story retains as much authenticity as possible in the face of the script’s semi-campy tone and the director’s wondrous visual flair. If there’s any complaint to be had with Stone’s performance is that she can’t help but shake the modern look that’s so naturally hers to where you actually believe this is a woman who existed in wild west times. As one of the film’s producers, however, Stone was responsible not just for certain actors being cast, but also on Raimi’s hiring. So while there might have been other actresses who might have fit into the world a little more credibly, in the end, there would be no Quick and the Dead as we know it without Sharon Stone.
(@frankfilmgeek on Xitter)
While I treasure Westerns and Sam Raimi’s movies like most of us, The Quick and the Dead was one of my shocking blind spots before this series. It was well worth the wait. Raimi’s classic off-kilter shots, floating superimpositions, and rapid-fire zooms imbue classic Leone-era Westerns with the heightened comic book energy he brought to the Evil Dead films, and would later realize at the peak of his powers with the Spider-Man movies. It’s a lean, dusty as hell piece rich with bloodthirsty vengeance–and I can’t think of another Western that takes the usual climax of these films and repeats it (to thrilling effect, I might add) into a central tournament-style structure. That dynamite hook allows for a gangbusters cast of iconic faces, future greats, and some of my favorite character actors. Gene Hackman returns to the devious menace he brought to Unforgiven, while young upstart Leonardo DiCaprio is in full teen heartthrob mode, at the same time showing off a flash of action chops that he’d bring to Inception. It’s so much fun doing a double-take at sudden appearances of everyone including Jigsaw/Tobin Bell, Keith David, and Gary Sinise.
(@Gambit1138 on Xitter)
The standouts, though, are Russell Crowe and Sharon Stone. Crowe’s soft-spoken rogue preacher running from his past is more relegated to a trapped prisoner than the Man with No Name action hero we might expect; instead, Sharon Stone blazingly steps into those nameless boots. The Lady is a reluctant action hero whose flair with a gun is undeniable, yet victory comes almost accidentally–while she’s driven by vengeance, each of her gunfights feel won by the skin of her teeth. It’s also refreshing that Raimi, Stone, and screenwriter Simon Moore are quick to dispense with needing to “prove” The Lady amidst the roster of gunslingers through a wonderful homage to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly–an act that bonds her and Crowe’s fates together, and marks her as a quick-witted, quick-drawing force to be reckoned with. That combination of resilience and luck make her such a winning protagonist, and helps make the once-expected structure of these kinds of Westerns thrillingly unpredictable here.
James Tyler
I have long held the potentially controversial position that The Quick and the Dead is my favorite Sam Raimi film, so very pleased so many people got their first go round with it due to this series. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I love it so much, but mostly because there is so much to love. It’s cast is stacked to the rafters, with everyone meeting the material with the exact right amount of self-serious melodrama it needs to click. The premise of a quick draw tournament that draws many intersecting plotlines is so perfectly calibrated to just be pulled along by drama and tension. It’s Raimi at his most indulgent, giving his horror flourish to a new genre that often can feel buttoned down. That manic energy gives the film an undeniable pulse and verve that just makes it so bad ass and infectious.
(@JayTheCakeThief on Xitter)
To the topic of bad asses, it is significant that Sharon Stone holds the center of this film. It exists solely due to her love of the script, but it also a significant commentary on the multi-faceted aspects of destructive masculinity orbiting around here, as she stays at the steady hand in the center. It is a captivating performance that blends aspects of her masculine western star counterparts, the stoic quiet of Clint Eastwood most notably, but is also often unafraid to be unapologetically feminine. Gene Hackman, who can do this sort of sneering villain work in his sleep, provides a perfect foil and gives the film its much needed weight. A film that defies its genre in so many ways, and one I can come back to again and again.
CINAPSE CELEBRATES THE WOMEN OF THE WEST
Every week in August, we’ll be looking Western films with a feminine edge. Women don’t get to take center stage in tons of Westerns, but they are at the front of some truly great films in the genre. Join us this month by contacting any of the team or emailing [email protected]!
August 19th – Johnny Guitar
August 26th – Meek’s Cutoff
