The Quick and the Dead - A Woman Hero Western

by Adrienne
(Jonesboro, GA, USA)

Stars Of 'The Quick and the Dead'

I saw the movie the Quick and the Dead, the 1995 version with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio. And I liked it. One thing about this movie which touched me deeply was, it was about a woman in a man’s world. In most westerns, there are gun-slinging men and damsels in distress. This movie showed that not all women in western movies were helpless. They can act and they can fight too.


Plot of the movie is, there is gunfight elimination competition in the town. Everyone who thinks he is a big shot enters this competition to prove his mettle. And everyone wanna gun down the city chief John Herod (Hackman) to be No. 1. Herod himself wants this competition to happen because it will let him gun down his every hidden enemy. Now to surprise you, a lady named Ellen (Stone) also enters the competition to settle an old score with Herod. She was out to get her revenge, but at the right moment and in the “right” way. There were actually, I believe, three different times she could have killed him and it would have been over with, but she waited and took her time and found that right moment to do what she came to do.


Actors and actresses who were chosen to play in this movie were quite well picked. Gene Hackman plays the ultimate villain. He is such a good bad guy with his stone-cold face and his defiant attitude; I hate him in this movie. Sharon Stone is another good one. If I hadn’t been told that it was her, I don’t think I would have recognized her. She played her role to a tee. Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio were fantastic; they played their parts as they were supposed to. The big thing that I liked about Russell Crowe was that he plays a bad-guy-gone-good. You really don’t see many of those transitions in western movie characters.


The movie had a lot of bad reviews. It was said that this movie was just another western where a hero rides into a lonely old town, Redemption, defeats the villain, and restores order to the town. Well, I think this movie was so much more than that. First of all, the gun-toting, rough-housing hero(ine) was a woman. Like I said, in most westerns, women are shown in distress and need a big, bad cowboy to rescue them. This one is the exact opposite. It portrays women a little better than most western movies do. Another good thing about this movie is, it is very stylish movie. You will really feel the deadly, intense gut feeling during the gunfights. Camera angles are just great.


And yes, there are some cheesy parts like some of the gun fights, but every western has, at least, one cheesy part, whether it is a romantic moment or a gun fight. I assume being a western with a lady in the leading role, also got this movie many bad reviews. But who cares? I enjoyed this movie and in my western movie review, I would recommend it to people who like western movies.