Quigley Down Under | Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo | It's the Wild West......of Australia!!

Quigley Down Under | Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo | Great Movie

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Quigley Down Under

	Quigley Down Under Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo MGM (Video & DVD), 2001 average customer review:based on 102 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It's the Wild West......of Australia!!

This 120 minute western takes place, of course, in the Wild West.......of Australia!

Alan Rickman is Elliott Marston, a wealthy rancher living in the outback near Fremantle. He places a global newspaper ad offering to hire the best long range sharpshooter in the world.

Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck), a top sharpshooter from Wyoming, responds to the ad and is brought all the way to Australia. He thinks at first he is being hired to shoot wild dingos.

Even his first day is eventful as he gets into a brawl at the landing pier with 3 thugs attempting to force a prostitute called Crazy Cora (Laura San Giacomo) into their wagon. He is getting the better of them (with a little help from Cora) when he finds out they were sent for him by his new boss.

Finally arriving at the ranch after a 3 day wagon ride from the coast, Marston is highly impressed with Quigley's ability to shoot a bucket from a 1/2 mile away (3 times in a row!) using a specially modified Sharps rifle.

But a cordial dinner that same night turns into a major fight when Quigley finds out Marston wants him to kill aborigines (not dingos) on his land from a distance where they cannot easily avoid his fire.

This time Marston and his men beat the hell out of both Quigley and Cora (when she attempts to help him again).

The enraged Marston has them taken by wagon 2 days out from the ranch and left for dead.

But the adventure and the story is just getting started....

....and, by the way, Quigley still has that rifle with plenty of ammo left!

There is plenty of action the rest of the way and Cora is just as interesting as Quigley. She injects some humor at just the right time into some dire situations and is a wonderful foil for Quiqley.

Quigley and Cora are far from invincible and have several setbacks. One often wonders how they can survive another day. And slowly, despite themselves, they are building a relationship.

The Australian scenery, people, and culture make this a very different western style adventure. Yet there are familiar elements and scenes common to all westerns.

Beautifully photographed, this is a unique film and a must see for western lovers that is never boring.

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Great Movie

You don't see many good westerns set in outback Australia, but this is one worth seeing. I think the combination of Tom SELLECK and a Sharps .45-110 rifle make for a good movie. Also worth mentioning is the bad guy played by Allan RICKMAN.

Selleck Shines as a real hero

Being an avid Tom Selleck fan--esp. Westerns, this one has some very good points. Tom is great as the American who comes to 'conquer' down under. The plot is interesting and not too predicatable...
One down side is the hocus poccus with the aboringinies and their vodoo.
The scene where they are tormented by the hateful white cowboys is a bit too Polticially Correct. It is also heart breaking. Chances are that after such treatment,the murderous cowboys would have gotten a very unfriendly late night visit from the natives. Over all worth the price.
It is not filled with drinking or womanizing as are a few of his other films.

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Solid Acting - Weak Story - Pacing Problems

1990's "Quigley Down Under" is basically a western parody of "Die Hard" (1988) , so if you liked "Die Hard", then you are this film's target audience. I would have liked it a lot better if I was sure that it was an intentional parody but I suspect that the director blundered around with little focus during production and the parody elements just came out accidentally; probably unrecognized by anyone but the editor. On the other hand, the fact that Alan Rickman simply reprises his Hans Gruber character lends support to the possibility that much of the parody stuff was intentional.

If you view the film you will have plenty of time and mental energy to explore the intentional vs unintentional parody question because the running time is long and it drags in many spots. Also there is no effort to incorporate suspense into any of the story so you will rarely get so caught up in things that you lose the detached perspective of a viewer. Some mental energy is required to suspend disbelief at the extremely contrived story elements and implausible action, but this will only be necessary for reasonably intelligent viewers (fortunately they are the ones with enough functioning brain cells to expend the mental energy).

"Quigley Down Under" stars Tom Selleck, as the title character-basically playing a gritty version of his Thomas Magnum character. Quigley is an American sharpshooter who goes to 19th century Australia to in answer to an advertisement placed by a rancher named Marston ( Rickman). Things get very "Joe Kidd" (1972) at this point as Quigley has moral objections to his new job duties, exterminating (at long range) the local Aborigines who regularly rustle Marston's cattle. Of course there is no plausible reason for Marston needing a long-range rifleman for this activity (mounted men could easily catch a running Ab), but the less logical thinking you do while viewing this film the more you will like it.

Quigley throws in with Crazy Cora, (Laura San Giacomo) a ditzy American with a tragic past. She really is crazy but gets better when they fall in love. I liked both their performances but not as much in the scenes they share.

Quigley is invincible against a sea of bad guys (the movie is simplistic good vs evil). The only times he gets overpowered is when someone sneaks up on him from behind and knocks him out. The director apparently thought the shock to the audience from the completely unexpected conking was worth losing any suspense factor from the stalking-it wasn't. Any suspense anywhere would have been a welcome ingredient. Also bleeding out any suspense is a tendency to have the bad guys pontificate endlessly when they have the drop on the hero. The problem is that the outcome of such a scene is a foregone conclusion and the speechmaking just makes you tired. Finally there is an overworked tendency for the bad guys to try one final trick after they appear to surrender. Which rapidly gets old, lame, and stupid because it is entirely predictable. Again, they don't set these up to build suspense; instead the action comes out of nowhere; substituting a shock factor for a suspense factor. But it doesn't shock.

The good acting and production design is wasted. If only the producers had expended a few more resources in pre-production to make the film smarter and more original. And then done some major trimming in post-production to pick up the pacing.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

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A Must for Rickman fans

I was recently introduced to Alan Rickman when I rented his film, Snowcake. Since then I have made it a point to view his extensive body of work, and it has been a most enjoyable adventure. I noticed in the the reviews that people are most impressed with his past portrayels of villains and and vipers. What a shame that they aren't aware of his astounding range; Rickman is wonderful in comedic roles (Galaxy Quest, Dogma). He is equally comfortable in romantic leads (Truly, Madly, Deeply, Sense and Sensibility). Every part he touches, he turns to gold, and I am certain that he will show us even more hidden talents when Sweeney Todd opens in December.

Quigley was enjoyable to watch, but one viewing was satisfactory for me. Rickman polishes each one of his scenes to a high shine. Selleck is a natural for this role. San Giacomo did not fit into her character, but not for lack of trying. I think she simply was miscast.

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