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The Quick and the Dead

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

tomatometer

20

Average Rating: 4.5/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 8

No consensus yet.

audience

54

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 63,360

My Rating

Movie Info

Director Sam Raimi brings his trademark comic book-influenced visual panache to this post-modern Western. Sharon Stone stars as Ellen, a mysterious female gunslinger who arrives in the frontier hamlet of Redemption for a contest pitting quick-draw artists against each other. The event is the brainchild of Redemption's evil, corrupt mayor, Herod (Gene Hackman), a criminal who has taken over the town and charges a 50% tax on local businesses. The pot for Herod's deadly game has swollen, attracting

R,

Western, Action & Adventure, Cult Movies

Nov 7, 2000

Sony Pictures Entertainment

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All Critics (40) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (19) | DVD (18)

A deadpan black comedy, Sam Raimi's fast-paced movie looks and sounds like a Leone oater but more so.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Mr. Raimi is limited by a sketch mentality, which means his jokes tend to be over long before his films end. But his tastes for visual mischief and crazy, ill-advised homage can still make for sly, sporadic fun.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

What Raimi can't find is a center. He hankers for us to giggle at the brutal archetypes he's parodying and to warm to them, too. It won't wash, pardner.

May 12, 2001
Rolling Stone
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Rarely dull, it is not noticeably compelling either, and as the derivative offshoot of a derivative genre, it inevitably runs out of energy well before any of its hotshots runs out of bullets.

February 13, 2001 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As preposterous as the plot was, there was never a line of Hackman dialogue that didn't sound as if he believed it. The same can't be said, alas, for Sharon Stone...

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment (1)
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Raimi's choice to give the film a comic book-like aura of mingled camp and grit makes for some fitfully energetic and entertaining moments, but it's not enough to overcome The Quick and the Dead's primary fault.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: ReelViews
ReelViews
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Just a little too one-dimensional . . . even for a two-dimensional medium.

September 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

Sam Raimi does a lot of interesting things in The Quick and the Dead and Sharon Stone plays a convincing female gunfighter, but the one-horse plot with no subplots to generate additional interest becomes a drag.

September 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

Raimi's movie borrows heavily from classic spaghetti westerns, but Raimi has a style of his own, and plenty of it.

February 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

Raimi's gimmicky but endlessly inventive direction gives it plenty of gas, and the excellent cast takes it the rest of the way.

September 2, 2005
Flipside Movie Emporium

Sharon Stone misses the mark on this one.

September 2, 2005 | Comment (1)
7M Pictures

Stylish Raimi western is violent, unpredictable.

October 30, 2004

See it for yourself - surprising

March 6, 2004

Awesome western. Raimi's technique heightens the standard gunfight drama.

July 14, 2003
About.com

Audience Reviews for The Quick and the Dead

Sam Raimi's entry into western is a chaotic mess that is often too silly to be taken seriously. On the other hand it also clearly wants to be taken serious with it's revenge backstory and dramatically staged duels. Still the biggest disappointment here is the fact that Raimi can't pull a single worthy performance from his remarkable cast.
There are names like Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio involved in this film and and all of them seem to be lifeless and blank characters without that much interest in them. Especially Stone is completely lost as a vengeful woman in the mission to set things right from her past.
Makers of this film possibly intended to do somekind of a visually overblown western but in the end this is just dull and lifeless experience to sit through. It is a work far from Raimi's own inventive Evil Dead.
December 16, 2012
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

A female gun slinger enters a quick draw tournament in her home town of Redemption to revenge herself against the outlaw who murdered her father. One of Sam Raimi's lesser known efforts, this is a fun comic-strip style horse opera that's more of a homage than a modern-day western in the mould of something like Unforgiven. It references High Noon, High Plains Drifter and everything in between with good turns from Sharon Stone as the woman with no name, Russell Crowe as a reformed gun slinger and a young Leonardo DeCaprio as the outlaw's upstart son. But this film belongs lock, stock and barrel to Gene Hackman's supremely hissable corrupt landowner who rules "his" town with an iron fist. An unpretentious, unfussy and stylish story of vengeance from the old school.
November 20, 2006
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

    1. Herod: If the swede had been any slower, he'd had birds nest in his hat.
    – Submitted by Madge M (18 months ago)
    1. Herod: As soon as the rain ends I'm going to make an example out of you.
    – Submitted by Madge M (18 months ago)
    1. Herod: It takes a lot to scare me. I love the sensation.
    – Submitted by Madge M (18 months ago)

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Latest News on The Quick and the Dead

June 29, 2007:
Crowe & Di Caprio to Team up for Ridley Scott's "Body of Lies"
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January 30, 2007:
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