by Ben Miller
When you rewatch Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead, it desperately needs to be contextualized. Look on the surface and you see four actors with both bonfide acting chops as well as moviestar magnetism. On top of all that, you have a cavalcade of character actors hamming it up in the background while Raimi pulls out every B-movie trick he knows for an entertaining-as-hell Western.
All of it all works, but it didn’t in 1995...
Everything started with Sharon Stone. Still riding high after the success of 1992’s Basic Instinct, she decided to turn towards producing. Westerns were the hot commodity following Unforgiven resurrecting the genre, and Stone picked a Simon Moore script about a quickdraw contest. Stone personally picked Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio and Raimi. She even alluded to her love of Army of Darkness for that director choice.
The only thing missing was the main antagonist of John Herod: enter Gene Hackman. The two-time Oscar winner looms over the proceedings with complete control of the screen. He never fades in the background and is never pushed to the side.
For Crowe, The Quick and the Dead offered American audiences their first glimpse at the Australian actor. Following years of quality work in Australian cinema like Proof and Romper Stomper, Crowe inhabits the remorseful preacher Cort, who seems to be the only person in the film who carries himself with quiet civility. Crowe’s style of restrained anger and rugged good looks gave the world a glimpse of things to come for the future Oscar winner.
The other revelation is Dicaprio. Already the hottest young actor, Leo was coming off an Oscar nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Basketball Diaries, DiCaprio portrays The Kid with a brash, cocky attitude, complete with all the boyish charm you would expect. Watching it today, you forget Dicaprio had that young swagger from his early days in film.
Meanwhile, Stone is given the least to do. Most of the film consists of her brooding, but when she gets to emote, she goes BIG. Look no further than her rain-soaked shootout near the film’s midpoint. Despite her character’s clear characterization, her performance leaves more than a little to be desired. That being said, her beauty in this film is almost unparalleled.
The rest of the film is populated with a rogue’s gallery of character actors, including Keith David, Lance Henricksen, Kevin Conway, Tobin Bell, Roberts Blossom, Mark Boone Junior and Pat Hingle. Gary Sinise even gets a memorable cameo as Stone’s father.
Technically, you would think a Western isn’t suited to Raimi’s sensibilities, but he populates the festivities with loads of Dutch angles, repeating fast zooms and sun-bleached vistas. It’s like Raimi watched every Sergio Leone film, took copious notes, and then imitated what he learned with his own personal flair.
Cinematographer Dante Spinotti lenses every shot with orange hues, while production designer Patrizia von Brandenstien (Oscar winner for Amadeus) and costume designer Judianna Makovsky make everything and everyone look a little dirtier than they should. This is one of the few Westerns were most characters look like they smell bad (this is a running joke for one character).
What makes the film different from other Westerns? Look to the sound design. Watch this scene with Hackman, DiCaprio and Crowe in a gun store. No big set pieces, no fights, just a display of guns. Listen to how operatic the guns sound; how the spinning of the chamber catches Crowe or how every gun click by DiCaprio coincides with the beats in his speech.
What made the film fail? More than one factor, but the over-saturation of the newly resurrected genre certainly didn’t help. In fact, during filming, the crew ran short of Old West costumes because of 12 other Westerns were being filmed at the same time. As for rabid fans of Sam Raimi, their fandom of the Evil Dead franchise didn’t exactly coincide with a Western starring Sharon Stone.
The film endures as an easy watch and as well as a window into intersecting careers. This same year, Stone would star in Casino, netting her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress but unfortunately, that was as good as it got for her. She continues to consistently work, but has yet to match her meteoric rise in the early 90s. Raimi would go on to superhero success with the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man franchise in 2002, Crowe had three straight Oscar nominations (and a win) from 1999-2001, while DiCaprio starred in Titanic just two years later and officially became “Leo.”
The Quick and the Dead continues to have a great cable TV run and has even developed a late-life critical appreciation. After 25 years, it’s about time.