The Quick and the Dead

Directed by Sam Raimi, The Quick and the Dead follows Sharon Stone’s mysterious gunfighter as she rolls into a small frontier town and is immediately drawn into an annual dueling tournament involving its residents (including Leonardo DiCaprio’s Kid, Russell Crowe’s Cort, and Gene Hackman’s Herod). It’s a pared-down premise that’s employed to predominantly entertaining (and sporadically spellbinding) effect by Raimi, as the filmmaker, working from Simon Moore’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced Western that’s been suffused with tense, captivating sequences and a whole host of stellar performances – with, in terms of the latter, DiCaprio and, especially, Hackman elevating the proceedings on an ongoing basis with their scene-stealing work. It’s clear, however, that The Quick and the Dead does suffer from a somewhat erratic midsection that’s exacerbated by a distinctly overlong running time, as the movie, which certainly should’ve topped out at 90 minutes, isn’t quite as streamlined as one might’ve hoped and contains a small handful of padded-out (or entirely needless) sequences. Such concerns are generally rendered moot by Raimi’s exceedingly energetic sensibilities, ultimately, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the picture benefits substantially from a climactic stretch that’s as exciting as it is satisfying – which does, in the end, cement The Quick and the Dead‘s place as a better-than-average contemporary Western that ranks as one of Raimi’s more overtly successful efforts.

*** out of ****