Day three of 10 Days Of
Mayhem kicks into gear with another western, an actual western this
time with Sam Raimi's mental gun slinger tournament actioner, The
Quick and The Dead. Now a lot of people are going to be saying 'wait
a minute, it's not an action film'....uhh they blow up a town and
have duels....it's an action film, so why have I chosen this as day
three's action movie ? Click read more and you'll find out...
The Quick And The Dead
for me was the first western to introduce me to the genre, I know
people are going to be saying 'hadn't you seen the Searchers, The
Wild Bunch?' nope, the only westerns I'd seen before that were Back
To The Future 3 and Calamity Jane with Doris Day, this film
introduced me to westerns which has since become a favourite genre
and yes I have seen The Searchers and The Wild Bunch now, but back in
96 when I 13 years old this was the coolest western in the world.
Anyway the reason it's
my selection for day 3 is it's fast pace and action packed plot line.
Gene Hackman plays Herod, he runs the town of Redemption and takes
half a dollar for every dollar spent or earnt in the town, each year
he holds a shooting contest and the winner gets a large sum of money.
Herod wins every year, however this time he didn't reckon on Ellen, a
female gunslinger vying for the prize money and revenge against
Herod. The film is directed by Sam Raimi who at the time was known
for his horror movie trilogy The Evil Dead and not his Spiderman
films, well Raimi shows his love for the western, especially the
spaghetti kind with this film, setting up each shot and zoom to mimic
the kind of shots we'd see in a Sergio Leone film or Sergio Corbucci
film. This adds a different flavour to the movie and instead of just
a straight up western like Open Range or Posse, this film has a sense
of fun about it. With Raimi's style in play in this film, all the
frantic zooms and quick edits make the film move at a tremendous pace
and he does not let the action stop from minute one. It's a sort
feminist revenge western too with Sharon Stone's Ellen coming across
as a hybrid of Ellen Riply mixed with the mystery of Eastwoods man
with no name, but what stops her character from being as strong as
she could've been is the fact that she's a whiny bitch. Sure she's
good with a gun but Ripley could kick her ass in a second. This
doesn't really ruin the film because it adds more character to Ellen,
she could have been a strong hard core gun slinger but it adds more
humanity to the character of Ellen. This is also one of the only film
I think I can sit through that stars Russell Crowe, the other being
L.A Confidential, Here he plays Cort, a gunfighter turned preacher
who has renounced his violent ways to follow the ways of the lord,
and by the end of the film Cort is a total fucking badass again.
Crowe is all kinds of cool in this film and it makes me sad that he
went on to make stuff like Gladiator ( im in the minority for this
one) and Robin Hood. Leonardo DiCaprio pops up a year before Romeo
and Juliet looking like a 12 year old girl and Hackman plays the best
scum bag this side of Omid Djalili. Hackman is always a great watch
and here as Herod he's on top slimy authoritative form.
The Quick And The dead
is a great fast paced homage to the old style westerns with a gender
twist on the revenge seeking gunman plot. Sam Raimi's great frenetic
direction helps movie along the proceedings and the film rocks a
great dry sense of humour. It's also fun to see Lance Henriksen
dressed as a mariachi gunfighter. Top draw action cinema from a great
decade for blowy uppy movies.
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