MaDD Blogger

Movies that should have been better: The Quick and the Dead

A few days ago I watched The Quick and the Dead and watching it again after all these years gave me an idea for a new blog section...movies that should have been better. The basic premise is to take movies that had everything going for it like say A list actors and screenwriters or the best producers and directors behind the scenes. You've all seen these movies Sliver,Hudson Hawk,Bonfire of the Vanities,Waterworld,Catwoman and The Last Action Hero are a few that come to mind. Let me be clear in saying that I'm not going to write about shitty movies in these essays, to qualify for movies that should have been better you can't just be a bad movie like Son of Mask instead you have to be one of those "Must See" movies that the studios drop millions on that just bomb like Alexander. Now that I've laid out the ground rules lets get on with it then.

Here's a review of The Quick and the Dead that was written when the movie first debuted:

"Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) tries gamely to recapture the exotic mysteries of spaghetti Westerns in this stylish but empty film, which stars Sharon Stone as a stranger who comes to the town of Redemption in time for an annual shooting contest. Her real motivations for being there are the stuff that might have found their way into a film by Sergio Leone--in fact, much of this film is a pastiche of Leone's greatest hits, including A Fistful of Dollars and Once upon a Time in America--but one can't quite believe Stone in the role. Gene Hackman gives a predictably solid performance as the town tyrant, and Leonardo DiCaprio is good as a lucky young gunslinger who gets to kiss the heroine. But not even the cast can help this failed project. Raimi brings a lot of razzle-dazzle to his camera work, but it doesn't make the film any more substantial."

That's right folks the director of The Quick and the Dead is Hollywood heavyweight director Sam Raimi. Maybe you've never heard of Raimi after all he is just a director and most directors don't become household names like Steven Spielberg,Francis Ford Coppola,Oliver Stone or Martin Scorsese but the 1.5 billion dollars that his last two films have grossed (Spiderman 1 and 2) tells me that you may have seen his work. He also directed one of my favorite films, 1990s Darkman starring then unknown Liam Neeson.

Ok so we know we are at least starting with a good director but now we have to get a good cast and believe me when I tell you that The Quick and the Dead features some of the finest actors EVER to grace the silver screen. Of the 5 names I'm about to mention Russell Crowe,Sharon Stone,Leonardo DiCaprio,Gene Hackman and Gary Sinise all have been nominated for an Oscar at least once. Sharon Stone for Casino and Sinise for his incredible performance as Lt.Dan in Forrest Gump. Both were losers although the year Sinise lost I thought he got robbed. 3 of them have been nominated at least 3 times. Crowe for The Insider, Gladiator,and A Beautiful Mind. Of those 3 films he won Best Actor for his masterful performance in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. DiCaprio was a loser all 3 times for What's Eating Gilbert Grape,Titanic, and The Aviator. Gene Hackman is a screen legend and has been nominated 5 separate times. In the films Bonnie and Clyde, I Never Sang for my Father, and Mississippi Burning he came up short but took home the gold in the classics The French Connection and Clint Eastwood's multi Oscar winning western Unforgiven. It was Unforgiven that caused the producers to seek Gene out to play nearly the exact same role in The Quick and the Dead. Do yourself a favor find a copy of Unforgiven and watch Mr.Hackman be a bad ass in that film instead and then top it off with a copy of Tombstone, you won't be sorry.

I don't want to talk about the plot too much since there's nothing original here and to be fair this isn't a shit movie...it's just so much less than it could have been. All the main players are solid though a bit robotic and seeing Sharon Stone ten years younger before she started getting a little long in the tooth never hurts. I hear she's shooting Basic Instinct 2 right now...without Michael Douglas. It might turn out to be a great flick but then again so will Rocky 6 and Rambo 4 when Stallone tricks someone into helping him make them.

I'm sure that Basic Instinct 2 will make a great movie to write about but that's the point of this. Movies are so over-hyped now that even when you see a decent movie you leave disappointed. There are too many hands in the pot and so much money on the line that everything is done by the numbers now. Some of the shitty movies that we see are so heavily test screened before we see them that alot of the time when a movie bombs the film company knew it was a turd before hand but they had to make the money back and the international box office is a lot more forgiving of our movies than we are and if you watch a lot of foreign films then you know why. I have a lot of new movies to see this summer and I have more movies to blog about but I hope you enjoyed reading this first one.