Wait a minute!

I love westerns...all types, sizes, shapes or colors(or B&W). I also love to read westerns, and Louis L'Amour is my favorite author. So I sent my wife out to buy "The Quick and the Dead", a wonderful, brilliant book by L'Amour. Well...she came home with "The Quick and the Dead" alright, but not the one I wanted! So, I says...what the hey. I'll watch it.

This version deals with a long list of well-known (maybe only to themselves) gunslingers, toughs, outlaws and ex-cons. There is even a preacher involved. They meet in this little known, off the beaten path town for a contest. This contest is unlike most, as the stakes are different. To lose is to die. To win is to live another day, to try to survive another shootout. There will ultimately be only 1 winner and he also gets $123,000.

There are several tense, dramatic moments in this film. Gene Hackman portrays the infamous town baron. He is evil and mean and doesn't deserve to live while better men die. But while he lives, the town pays him just to stay alive, while his gun-toting hirelings do his dirty work.
He is not beyond trickery and bending the rules.

Pat Hingle, the barkeep and score keeper, and Lance Henriksen, a tough gunslinging gambler are both good supporting actors and add to any movie they are in.

Sharon Stone idlely sits around town, watching the scene unfold. She then shows her prowess with a six shooter, and is added to the contest. Her frustrations mount as she, or Hackman are challenged over and over before she can deal with her arch enemy from her past.

Leonardo DiCaprio shows and acts his age, and should have turned this one down, or demanded a re-write to fit him.

This is a well written story, with some terrific actors/actresses, but it's believability leads one to question one's intelligence and knowledge of American history. All in all, it was a good show and kept my interest, but it's not the 'real' "Quick and the Dead". I will watch it again some day.