Review – The Quick and the Dead

Ever wonder what it might look like if famed indie horror movie director Sam Raimi decided to switch to westerns? Well, wonder no longer! Raimi brings his usual bag of jump-cuts and other visual tricks to bear against what is otherwise a spaghetti western-style action flick. Most of the characters are western movie clichés: the shootist bent on revenge (Sharon Stone, whose gender makes her character at least somewhat novel), the villainous town boss (Gene Hackman), the ex-gunman-turned-preacher (Russell Crowe), and so on. Anyone who likes violent westerns should thoroughly enjoy this outing, and Raimi fans may get a bit of a bang out of it as well. Otherwise it’s a fairly run-of-the-mill action movie, with the acting and visual effects only rarely offsetting the predictable, cliché-driven script. Mildly amusing