Reeling Backward: The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Sam Raimi's Western camp -- or is it? -- got a skip 30 years ago because it looked so lightweight and goofy. Your critical companion decided to finally unholster his reservations and take a look.

I was a fan of Sam Raimi’s 1980s and ‘90s horror and horror-adjacent flicks, with “Evil Dead II” still retaining a special place in the heart. Campy humor had always been an integral part of his shtick — at least until he “got serious” with 1998’s “A Simple Plan,” 1999’s “For Love of the Game” and “The Gift” the following year. You can also see his puckish humor in his Spider-Man trilogy (the Tobey Maguire one) and 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

But “The Quick and the Dead?” That was the one where I took a pass.

When the trailer for this Western debuted, I pegged it as a silly, lightweight take, a postmodern tweak of the genre, particularly its more self-serious titles. At this time dour Westerns were making something of a resurgence, with the critical and/or commercial success of “Unforgiven,” “Dances with Wolves,” “Tombstone,” etc.

It also seemed like Gene Hackman appeared in every other one of these as the bad guy, including “Unforgiven,” “Wyatt Earp” and “Quick.”

The premise instantly turned me off: a quick-draw contest in which the greatest gunslingers gather from across the land to compete in structured games with a $123,000 payout to the winner. (That’s $3.8 million in today’s dollars.)

By 1995, most people were well aware that the idea of two men facing off in a dusty street at high noon was entirely a concoction of movies and pulp fiction, and this seemed to be turning it into a veritable game show. Indeed, the entire theme of “Unforgiven” was demythologizing this BS, with the hapless chronicler played by Saul Rubinek serving as the stand-in for generations of filmmakers slinging it.

Then-youngsters Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe showing up in very-1990s foppy-haired hair ‘dos, clearly aimed at lassoing in some of the female audience breathing heavily at the “Young Guns” and “Legends of the Fall” matinee idols, only served to underscore the movie’s unseriousness.

So, I skipped it.

Others seemed to feel similarly at the time, as it bombed commercially and critically. However, it’s undergone a reputation refurbishment in the years since, with many praising its visual style and performances to nudge it into cult classic territory.

Almost 30 years have gone by now, if you can believe it, so I decided it was time to finally unholster my reservations and take a peek.

And all the reasons I didn’t want to see it then are just as valid now. It’s a deeply silly, vapid flick that wanders all over the plains in tone. It was conceived as a star vehicle for Sharon Stone, who plays it very straight and grim in contrast to the rest of the cast and Raimi’s goofy camera work.

I get the sense that Stone, then hot off of “Basic Instinct” and “Sliver,” was looking to de-sexualize her star persona. A love scene with Crowe was removed before its release.

Stone served as producer, and over the objections of the studio suits insisted on the selection of Raimi, as well as Crowe — then an unknown in Hollywood with only Australian films like “Romper Stomper” under his belt. She also fought for DiCaprio, and actually paid his salary out of her own pocket. It’s fair to say both actors owe a good portion of their careers to Stone.

Screenwriter Simon Moore wrote it as a spec script in the mold of the Spaghetti Westerns, but with a woman in the man-with-no-name role. John Sayles was brought in to do a rewrite to make it more of a classic humorless oater, most of which Moore eventually removed. But I wonder if the revisions contributed to the wavering mood, which sometimes borders on pure comedy and other times reaches ineptly for tragedy.

In 1881, in the town of Redemption former outlaw John Herod rules as the unofficial king. (Biblical references alert!) He has organized the quick-draw contest — apparently a recurring event — in order to tamp down challenges to his rule by giving miscreants an outlet for their violent ambitions. Herod takes half of every dollar made in town for himself as protection money and occasionally participates in the contest personally to remind everyone of his prowess.

His son, Fee (DiCaprio), is a callow youth everyone simply calls “The Kid,” and runs the local gun shop. The teenager is looking to declare his independence from his old man, and enters the contest with the goal of gaining Herod’s respect. For some reason, Kid has a number of large barrels of dynamite powder that he sleeps on for a bed, which we just know will eventually get a fiery deployment.

Stone’s character is known simply as “The Lady,” a novelty as the only woman gunfighter anyone has ever seen. She has come to face down Herod, who killed her father, the local marshal (Gary Sinise), when she was a child, as seen in regular (and probably unnecessary) flashbacks.

(Crowe’s character at one point calls her “Ellen,” a name she never shares onscreen, so perhaps it was revealed during their tryst that wound up on the cutting room floor.)

Crowe plays Cort aka The Reverend, a former saddle mate with Herod who reformed and took up the preacher’s life. Herod ordered his men to find Cort, burn down his mission and bring him to Redemption so he can be forced to participate in the contest. He is kept in chains all the time except when he is competing, and Herod provides him with the cheapest revolver in town and a single bullet for each match.

Hackman does what he can with this material, trying to mold a believable character out of a rambling mess of speeches and motivations. The sense we get is that Herod is a pure killer who can only respect others like himself. He is affronted that Cort has abandoned his true self and believes (mostly correctly) that the younger man will revert to his old ways when pressured. He disses his son as a pale imitation of himself. He is intrigued by Lady, seeing her as perhaps the rarest woman to match his own ruthless nature.

Of course, the most obvious question with this plot is why Lady goes through the motions of the quick-draw contest and doesn’t just blow Herod away first chance she gets. Despite her genuine gunplay skills, she’s never actually killed anyone and wimps out when he invites her to a private dinner to woo her.

There’s a clever bit where she pulls a Derringer out of her garter under the table, and Herod hears it being cocked. He responds with his own clicked warning, but as Lady beats a hasty retreat she sees that it is only a cigarette case whose lid he has used to fool her.

Lady does drunkenly sleep with the Kid her first night in town, which seems incongruous with her redemptive journey. I get the sense it was only left in the movie because that’s the moment when the Kid’s dynamite is revealed.

The contest starts with 16 entrants — conveniently a multiple of two that can be halved each day as the matches go on. (What happens if only 13 enter? Or 18? Is there a play-in contingency for this tournament?) At first they shoot only until only one gunfighter is unable to continue, and indeed most are only wounded. But Herod later changes the rules so they’re to the death.

Most of the other contestants are background players, though a few get a little character-building. Scars (Mark Boone Junior) is a recent prison breaker who never bothered to change out of his striped garb, one eye blinded and the rest of him stinking to high heaven. Lance Henriksen plays Ace Hanlon, a foppish two-gun fighter beloved by the town harlots who Herod humiliates by shooting up both his hands before slaying him.

Eugene (Kevin Conway) is a foul Lothario who diddles with the young daughter of Horace (Pat Hingle), the saloon keep and reluctant emcee of the contest. Lady, who it’s implied was sexually assaulted by Herod’s men as a child, angrily takes him out in a rainy face-down, shooting his dick off in the process for good rhetorical measure.

Keith David turns up as Sergeant Clay Cantrell, a refined self-described “shootist” who employs a pistol on a belt spinner rather than the standard holster-and-draw method. (Which kinda seems like cheating.)

Herod ferrets him out as a professional assassin paid by the townsfolk to eliminate him. After easily besting Cantrell, he launches into a long soliloquy warning to his flock of sheep — “This is my town! If you live to see the dawn, it's because I allow it!” — that I swear must’ve served as the inspiration for Denzel Washington’s King Kong speech in “Training Day.”

Cort and Lady, as the resident outsiders, forge an allyship as things go on, knowing they’ll probably have to square off at some point. He drops her a hint about the chiming of the clock tower that marks the beginning of each fight: “There's a click before the strike. Listen to the clock.” When she hears Cort used to run with Herod, things sour between them for a bit.

Raimi uses some of his signature camera moves for the gunfights, such as the ‘dolly zoom’ made famous in “Jaws,” sometimes accompanied by corkscrewing tilt to further the disorientation effect. The result is to diminish the impact of the violence, rendering the killings cartoonish — such as Herod’s final moment, where he espies his own shadow on the ground with a sunlit hole through the heart.

The standout exception is the death of the Kid, who finally challenges Herod to a duel. Although he tries to convince the youngster to drop out without dishonor, part of Herod knows this moment had to come. Rather than honoring Fee for finally showing his mettle — even managing to wound him in the neck — Herod disdains the Kid upon killing him, after the boy whimpers his desire not to die in Lady’s lap.

“It was never proved that he was my son,” he declares. “It was the farmer that… he wasn't mine. I gave him a way out. He wouldn't take it.”

I can see how this could have been a truly powerful moment. But it’s impossible for it to register in the midst of 108 minutes of tomfoolery and ironic send-ups of Western conventions.

One thing I’ve learned after a lifetime of watching and thinking about movies is when it comes to tone, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Meaning a scene like the Kid’s death, instead of having weight, sticks out like a sore thumb.

In addition to being a breakout film for Crowe and DiCaprio, “Quick” also had the distinction of being the final screen credit of Woody Strode, the great character actor who played in many Westerns and genre pictures. He has a brief cameo as Charlie Moonlight, the town coffin-maker, who prides himself on being able to guess a potential customer’s dimensions at a glance. (He pegs Lady at 5’8”, Stone’s actual height, while still atop her horse.)

Some notable comings and goings, I guess, is the best “The Quick and the Dead” can claim.