The western is very nearly synonymous with
Hollywood. Many directors get the bug at some point in their
careers to visit the age of coybows, saloons and dusty trails.
No doubt one of the more appealing aspects
of the western are the shootouts. Gun-slingers are America's
knights, our Samurai. The notion of two men facing one another,
one about to die and the outcome dependent only on which of
them is quicker on the draw is all very dramatic.
Most directors save the shootout for the climax
of the film, a the very representation of the final battle between
good and bad. Sam Raimi, however, seems to have the notion that
the shootout is the best part of the western. To prove it, he
set out to craft a story for which the only point is the shootout.
Thus, The Quick and the Dead was born.
There is a plot, of sorts, but it's about
as flimsy as the table by the stairs in your average bar room
brawl. The real point is to gather a group of colorful characters,
many of them the oldest clichés in the western genre,
and have them participate in a quick draw dueling competition.
We know, within the first 10 minutes, which
characters will live and which will die and even, in most cases,
which ones will duel each other. With the outcome of the story
as obvious as the setting sun, about the only thing left is
style. Sam Raimi has a lot of style and he brings it all to
the table here.
I suspect, and I'm probably not far off, that
this film was conceived as a series of scenes and the plot was
only a token gesture to tie them all together.
The imagery in this film is truly wonderful,
if not largle impossible. Take, for instance, a scene following
a duel where one of the combatants is standing triumphantly.
Has he just won? As the camera pulls back, we see his shadow
on the ground and in the middle of it is a single ray of sunlight
shining through the bullet hole in his chest. Nevermind that
real world physics make this impossible, the shot is just plain
cool and amazingly clever.
Raimi uses every trick he can think of, from
depth of field zooms, to whip pans, to jump cuts to create a
look that is very close to that of Japanese animation. If nothing
else, it can't be said that this film isn't fun to watch.
Still, The Quick and the Dead can't really
be called a good film. The plot, such as it is, is obvious and
uninspired. The visuals are the only saving element, which is
a shame because if the story had been even half as good as the
imagery, then this could have been up there with the greatest
westerns of all time.
Oh, and about that plot, Sharon Stone plays
a gunffighter out to kill John Herod (Gene Hackman), thus avenging
the murder of her father (Gary Sinise). Herod happens to be
running a gunslinger contest and Stone enters hoping to challenge
Herod to a duel. That's pretty much all you need to know.
