The Hateful Eight (2015)

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Derns, James Parks, Zoe Bell,  

Right after I finished watching The Hateful Eight, I immediately tried pinpointing the films that influenced Tarantino while writing this one. I mean, most of his films are a smorgasbord of other films put together and blended into Tarantino’s own brand of storytelling. So anyhow, I swear to god, the two films I mentioned to my friend were John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and Tarantino’s own Reservoir Dogs (1992). I couldn’t see other influences other than those two. I mean, in general, sure The Hateful Eight is influenced by Sergio Leone’s westerns and also The Magnificent Seven (1960), but the two films that came to mind the most were The Thing and Reservoir Dogs. I haven’t seen enough Western’s to know exactly all of the films he was influenced by, but I’m sure there are a zillion of them. Funny how normally Tarantino borrows from other filmmakers to make up a new film, yet this time, he’s feeding on himself for inspiration! He’s turned into an Ouroboros, eating his own tail! But more on that later. 

While researching The Hateful Eight for this review I discovered that Tarantino himself quoted The Thing and Reservoir Dogs as his main source of inspiration. I think it’s so eclectic and fantastic, that Tarantino is inspired by a science fiction horror film to make his new Western! In fact, John Carpenter’s The Thing was the only film that Tarantino showed the cast and crew to give them an idea of the kind of isolation that he wanted to capture with The Hateful Eight. Tarantino loves The Thing so much that he cast Kurt Russell and had the musical score composed by Ennio Morricone! I love the fact that Tarantino recognizes the awesomeness of Carpenter’s The Thing; it’s always been a favorite of mine. What Tarantino distilled from that picture was that dreadful feeling that you're in the middle of nowhere and no one can save you. You can literally cut the tension in The Thing with a knife. I have to say Tarantino nailed it. During The Hateful Eight, you truly feel like you are in the middle of nowhere with these characters. Shooting the film in the middle of these lonely mountains, and having the story take place in the middle of a raging blizzard was a brilliant idea! It’s a successful setting for the sort of tension filled story Tarantino wanted to tell with this film. 

The Hateful Eight is all about this bounty hunter called John Ruth. He is on his way to a town called Red Wood, accompanied by his prisoner, an evil lady named Daisy Domergue. He’s taking her to town to collect his money and to see her hang. Unfortunately, on his way there, a raging blizzard makes him take refuge in a cottage called ‘Minnies Haberdashery’, a place where you could come in, warm yourself, get a drink and a bite to eat. When he gets there, the place is populated by a group of individuals apparently seeking refuge from the storm as well. Who wants to kill who and why? Will they all survive the blizzard?

Tarantino’s idea for this film was locking up a bunch of mean bastards in a cabin in the middle of a raging blizzard to see what sort of situation develops. This being a Tarantino film, you can bet your ass, whatever is going to happen is going to be some fucked up crazy ass shit. First things first my friends, when you go watch The Hateful Eight you have to be ready for a film that takes its time in setting up characters and situations, this film is in no hurry to end. But trust me, you can be assured all the set up will pay off by the time the film ends. You know how film critics are always bitching and moaning that there’s not enough character development in films today? Well, you don’t have to complain about that here because there’s plenty of it. In fact, every single character has a back story, and every single one gets their chance to tell it, with all the detail and set up in the world. So be ready for that. But trust me, once things get rolling, well there’s no stopping this gravy train. Things get bloody and nasty, quick! In fact, I know Kill Bill (2003) was practically filmed in blood, but damn, The Hateful Eight has to be one of Tarantino’s bloodiest affairs! It certainly is extremely graphic. Kudos to the guys at KNB Effects group for supplying that good old fashion gore! It blew my head clean off!

Tarantino has always made meaningful films with “something to say”, I kept wondering what The Hateful Eight was going to be really about. You know, in the midst of all the blood and guts, was it all going to be worth it in the end? Or was The Hateful Eight just going to be a lot of senseless violence for violence sake? Of course it was all going to mean something! Tarantino isn’t about making empty movies, I don’t think he’s ever been about that. When I go and watch a Tarantino movie I always expect them to be about meaningful subject matter or at the very least fun and entertaining. I mean, even Death Proof (2007), which seems like simple, yet fun homage to car movies from the 70’s said something about female empowerment. His earlier films had more of a fun vibe to them, but from Inglorious Bastards (2009) onward, his films have taken on an even more meaningful tone. On The Hateful Eight, Tarantino revisits his favorite theme, the theme that has reigned supreme throughout his entire career; that old demon humanity can’t seem to exorcise just yet: racism. I have to say that he does so in an indirect manner, it’s subtle. You’ll almost come away from the film thinking it was simply ‘a fucked up tale’, but it’s only after the film mulls inside your skull for a couple of days that you realize that racism is at the very core of the film! While many object to Tarantino’s repeated use of the word ‘nigger’, I think its honest filmmaking. What’s the problem with showing things they way they were? In fact, if it bothers you every time you hear the word or every time they treat a black person unjustly in his films, then I think Tarantino is doing his job right. It shocks you because it’s wrong, but it also shocks because there’s no denying these things happened and continue to happen in our world. So put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you want to criticize Tarantino for using the word nigger.

Technically speaking, this film is beautiful. It gets extra points for going the old fashion way of shooting on location! In fact, it gets bonus points for doing everything old fashion, like using actual film and shooting on 70 millimeter. Hell, it gets extra points for telling an intriguing yarn, filled with characters that seem alive, intense and raw. The drama is there, so much so that the film, much like Tarantino’s own Reservoir Dogs (1992), feels like a theater play. Most of the film takes place in one location, just like Reservoir Dogs, and both are about questioning loyalty and spilling your guts…both literally and metaphorically. This is not to say that The Hateful Eight is a carbon copy of Reservoir Dogs, but the similarities are there. But with the old, there’s something new and the new comes in the form of new actors appearing for their first time in a Tarantino film, for example, Jennifer Jason Leigh who just chews the film up. I loved her intensity, her craziness and her willingness to just go nuts with her character. She really chews up the screen, same as everyone involved. And wow, you'll love Walton Goggins after this movie. Kurt Russell works like magic here, he aint the good guy, in fact, nobody here is the good guy. Everybody is freaking despicable, hence the title.

Final words on the whole thing is that this is very much a Tarantino film, you’ll hear that dialog and you know it’s a Tarantino film, you’ll hear his voice both through his dialog and literally, because at one point Tarantion actually becomes the narrator of the film! Ha! Brilliant! I loved that! I love it when Tarantino breaks the rules! He’s like “I’m telling this story!” I’m glad that Samuel L. Jackson convinced Tarantino to make this film even though the script leaked before the film was made. You see, once upon a time Tarantino was furious that his script was out there for all to see before he had even shot the thing, so he swore he wouldn’t shoot the film. But his cast convinced him otherwise and voila! We got another masterpiece from good old QT. The thing about Tarantino is that he wants you to remember that cinema is a place to hear stories, to talk about ourselves, to get lost in the reflections of humanity. There’s no rush here. You came to the cinema? You dragged your ass out to the movies? Then here’s a film to make it worth your while. I will always love Tarantino for making films that you don’t immediately forget the minute you walk out of the theater, please, Mr. Tarantino, keep it going kind sir! Keep reminding us why films matter!  

Rating: 5 out of 5         

   

Django Unchained (2012)

Title: Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Don Johnson

Review:

There’s a group of filmmakers out there that use their clout in Hollywood, their power as icons of filmmaking to truly say something about humanity with their films. These directors grow conscious of the power they have as storytellers and so, instead of making empty Hollywood spectacles with no meat to them, they opt to make films that actually say something, films that not only entertain us, but also enlighten us at the same time. Take for example Steven Spielberg who’s been doing it for years with films like Empire of the Sun (1987), Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Schindlers List (1993) and most recently Lincoln (2012); all films that pin point a dark time in human history. Through these films Spielberg speaks of the horrors of war and the inhumanity of slavery. With Inglorious Basterds (2009) and now, Django Unchained Tarantino has graduated into this group of filmmakers who use their careers and films to comment on the evils of society. Yes sir ladies and gents, Django Unchained serves up a hefty helping of Tarantino hatred aimed at the white supremacist boneheads who think that white is more than black. Once again Tarantino zeroes in and aims his guns at the evils of racism. 

In Django Unchained  we meet Dr. King Schultz, a mercenary disguised as a dentist. He goes around killing criminals for bounty. He needs to kill this gang of murderers, but he doesn’t know what they look like, so he searches for a slave that used to work in the same plantation where these three criminals are currently hiding out. Enter Django, the slave who can help Dr. Schultz out. It isn’t long before both Django and Dr. Schultz team up and decide to work together as bounty hunters, erradicating the world of bad guys for the right price. But Django can never forget his true love, a beautiful slave girl by the name of Broomhilda. Can Dr. Schultz and Django free Broomhilda From the clutches of an evil slave driver named Calvin Candie?

So the pleasures of watching a Tarantino film are many in my book. First off, let’s talk about how Tarantino is finally making a western, a genre of films that he was obviously going to end up working on at some point in his career. It is almost a given that whoever loves Kung Fu movies as much as Tarantino does, will also love westerns, because both of these genres are very similar. This is probably the reason why Tarantino agreed to appear in Takashi Miike's Sukijaki Western Django (2007), a film that effectively mixed the asian film with the western, I recommend that one if you feel like seeing a stylish and offbeat western, in it Tarantino cameos as a cowboy. Tarantino's love for westerns is very evident in Django Unchained, for example his appreciation for Sergio Corbucci's original Django (1966) can be heard as soon as the film starts; it opens with the original Django theme song from Corbucci's film playing through out the entire opening credit sequence, the credits in the film where done using the same striking red font used in Corbucci's film. Django Unchained has shoot outs, taverns, characters riding horses in the sunset, a little town in the middle of nowhere, sherriffs, marshalls, male bonding, all elements we've come to expect from the western; but what makes this one different is the issue of slavery. Django Unchained goes into the whole 'Mandigo Fighting' scene, which was all about white slavers pitting their strongest slaves against each other to the death.  

Now if you've seen Tarantino's previous films then you know that he sympathizes with black people and all the suffering they've gone through across history, one could almost say that Tarantino wishes he was black himself. While he has been known to love all types of films from different genres, he's always had a fondness for blaxsploitation films like Coffy (1973), Superfly (1972), The Mack (1973) Foxy Brown (1974) and Shaft (1971). Tarantino is constantly inspired by these films. His love for them always shows up in his work; Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997) both have a whole lot of black in them and so does Django Unchained. Black is beautiful and Tarantino knows it; and he wants to make damn sure you know it as well. Black characters have always formed a part of Tarantino's cinematic heroes, so when Tarantino decided to make his Django black as opposed to all previous cinematic incarnations of the character, it didn't suprise me one bit. And when the film ended up criticizing slavery and the Ku Klux Klan, it made all the sense in the world. The white slavers of those days, along with the members of the Ku Klux Klan aren't all that different from Hitler's Nazi's, which Tarantino also criticized with Inglorious Basterds; I think it's safe to say that  Tarantino is concerned with making films that put a magnifying glass on humanities greatest mistakes, a practice that some of the best directors do.          

Same as Spielberg graduated from making Summer Blockbusters to making more serious, socially conscious films with The Color Purple (1985), so has Tarantino. Once upon a time, Tarantino was a filmmaker  more concerned with shock value then anything else. I'm not saying that films like Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Pulp Fiction are empty films, these are some of his best films, truly entertaining. And there's no doubt that they are glorified b-movies, films that sulk in their low brow entertainment roots. But now, it feels to me that with his two previous efforts he's decided to speak his mind against on important issues, things that truly matter in the world. With Django Unchained  Tarantino makes the black man, a slave, the hero of the film. He gives a slave, the power to strike back at those who would treat him as less. In Inglorious Basterds Tarantino changed history and rewrote it in his own way; in Tarantino's universe Hitler and his cronies die burned alive inside of a movie theater, while a Jew laughs maniacally from the afterlife. We all know that's not the way it happened, but symbolically, Tarantino is showing how much he hates antisemitism by burning these truly evil individuals inside of a theater. In this way, he gets a cinematic revenge for all of us, for all the victims and for himself. Django Unchained functions the same way, but with white supremacists, slavers, and the members of the Ku Klux Klan. There is one scene in Django Unchained where Django practically  whips a white racist to death, then shoots him dead. There's such hatred in Jamie Foxx's eyes during that scene, it's as if he was whipping this racist individual for all those who have suffered through out history, an awesome scene! With this film Tarantino is saying "you're wrong and have always been wrong about this, let's whip some sense into ya!" 

But aside from racial issues, the film has some amazing performances all around. I have loved Christoph Waltz performances from the very first time I saw him in Inglorious Basterds (and who didnt right?) but on Django Unchained he doesn't play a villain, instead he plays an extremely likable character, that of Dr. King Schultz, Django's liberator and mentor, what a great character! He is very articulate, very intelligent, very civil, but he wont have a problem blowing your head off if the law permits him to. Jamie Foxx totally commands his character as Django, loved every second of him on screen. He has this attitude to him, first his this angry, scared slave, but slowly he turns into this cocky, black avenger who soon realizes his worth and will take no crap from anybody. And yet another plus this film has going for it is DiCaprio's Calvin Candie. Holy moly what a great character. I've always loved DiCaprio's performances, he has a level of intensity he can reach which is fantastic, and he really channells that anger into this character, so much so that DiCaprio cut himself while filming an angry scene and Tarantino, bless his soul, used that very take. There's a duality to Calvin Candie that I enjoyed, he's a villain, but a nice guy at the same time. Samuel L. Jackson plays an old slave who basically kisses Calvin Candies ass all the time, you'll grow to hate him, but he will also make you laugh. All in all, an excellent cast that makes the film a true pleasure to watch. 

This being a Tarantino film, the high levels of violence displayed here shouldn't surprise anyone. Here the blood flies like there's no tomorrow. This is a revenge film after all, so when the blood must flow, it will, without mercy. The word 'nigger' is also used profusely, an issue that has become something of a controversy, but in Tarantino's defense I will say that the white people of those days probably used the word as much. You can also expect a film that has a well thought out story, with some incredibly good character development; this film takes its time so you can get to know these characters, the dialog will keep you glued to that screen; it's no secret Tarantino has a talent for writing dialog thats just a pleasure to hear, these characters can be so freaking funny at times. Plus, there's cameos galore here! Keep your eyes peeled for Bruce Dern, Tom Savini, Michael Parks, the original Django Franco Nero, Don Johnson, Jonah Hill and Zoe Bell. For lovers of westerns and Tarantino films, this film has tons of treats, you just gotta keep your eyes and ears open. All in all, one of the best films I've seen in 2012, one that's sure to make my top ten of 2012. By the time the film ends, you will have a huge smile on your face and love Django; Jamie Foxx really earned his actors badge with this one. I rarely go see a movie twice the same weekend, but this was one of them. Highly recommended my friends, fun and enlightening at the same time.

Rating: 5 out of 5   

Django (1966)

Title: Django (1966)

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Cast: Franco Nero, Jose Bodalo, Loredana Nusciak, Eduardo Fajardo

Review:

Now that Tarantino is about to release his new western ‘Django Unchained’ he’s got everybody watching Django movies. What’s a ‘Django’ movie you might be asking yourself, well, here’s where you’re going to learn, read on my friends. By now,   most of us are familiar with how director Quentin Tarantino makes a film; we understand his modus operandi. Basically, Tarantino takes a couple of films he likes, takes certain elements from them and then does his own thing. When he made Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, it was obvious he was influenced by films like Lady Snow Blood (1973) and Shogun Assassin (1980), amongst many others. These films garnered a whole lot of attention when Tarantino’s Kill Bill films came out because people wanted to know why Tarantino thought they were special, I know I did. To me this is a positive thing because some of the movies that Tarantino borrows from are cult classics that wouldn’t be seen by a lot of people otherwise; but thanks to Tarantino being inspired by them, a lot of the films he draws from suddenly get new releases, and so a whole new generation discovers them. The same thing is happening with the Django movies. I recently had a chance to finally see the first Django film, and I have to say I was genuinely impressed; I loved every second of it!

 The first and most important of the Django movies is the film I’ll be reviewing today, simply titled Django (1966) written and directed by Italian director Sergio Corbucci. This film was so successful in its time and considered so controversial for its graphic violence that many films after it used the Django name in their titles just to cash in on the original films success. Reportedly there are more than 31 westerns that have used the Django name in their titles, but it’s rumored that there are more than 100 films that have used the name ‘Django’ in their titles! Truth be told, the only official sequel to Corbucci’s film is a film called Django Strikes Again (1987), directed by Nelo Rossatti and written by Corbucci himself. It had Franco Nero reprising his role as Django. Sufficient to say then that Django is an extremely influential film. Hell, even Japanese director Takashi Miike made his own Django movie entitled Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)! What other films has Django influenced you might ask? How's about Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995)? That ear slicing scene in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992)? Straight out of Django thats where it came from! So this isn't any old movie, a lot of important filmmakers love this one, and chances are you will too. 

A lot has been said about the violence quotient in Django; and it’s true, the film is pretty violent. Maybe by today’s standards this film isn’t all that graphic, but back in the day having a character impaled on a cross, or having someone get their ear sliced off and fed to them was a bit too much for some, and so, the film was banned in many countries. I can definitely see why though, the film does have a body count of 138! A character does get his hands crushed to smithereens by a pack of wild horses. Hundreds of Mexicans are shot to death. So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this movie can be considered violent and graphic. This isn’t surprising when we take in consideration that this is a ‘Spaghetti Western’ which means, it’s a cowboy movie made by Italians, and Spaghetti Western’s same as Italian Horror films, do not have a ratings system, these guys could just shoot whatever the hell they wanted because they didn’t have to worry about a ratings system, in fact, in all of Europe they still don’t have a ratings system, which of course I think is fantastic. This is why Italian horror movies and Spaghetti Westerns are more violent than your typical Hollywood films.

The story for Django is simple enough; Django arrives at a small town so he can avenge the death of his wife. He walks in carrying a coffin with him; nobody seems to think much of it. Django soon discovers that the town is at war, two factions are at each others throats. The Mexicans and another band of red hooded misfits led by a man named ‘Major Jackson’. This to me was the biggest reference to Akiro Kurosawa’s Samurai Epic Yojimbo (1961), a film in which a Samurai named ‘Sanjuro’ stumbles onto a town with the same dilemma; the people of the town are suffering because two factions are at war. The character of Django functions in the same way that Toshino Mifune’s ‘Sanjuro’ functions in Yojimbo; he comes to set things right. He’s not a true blue good guy, because you’ll notice right off the bat that Django has no problems in blasting away anyone who gets in his way. He is for all intents and purposes the epitome of the anti-hero. On the one hand he treats the ladies with the proper respect they deserve, but on the other he has no quarrels with killing people to steal their gold. So Django is that kind of character, a loner, a rebel who lives by the beat of his own drum.  

Django was a film made in response to Sergio Leones famous westerns, primarily A Fist Full of Dollars (1964). When you see Django you immediately notice some similarities with Leone’s films, the scruffy looking characters with ugly, almost cartoonish faces. The main character is a loner, waltzing into town to set things right. He is good with a gun. Same as in many Leone’s films, characters are backstabbing each other all the time, so this is the kind of film where nobody really, truly trusts each other. One second someone is your friend, the next they betray you, and then they become your friends again? That sort of thing. In that sense it reminded me of Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). Actually, it was this last film that I thought Django had the most in common with, both films deal with a treasure, both films end up in a cemetery; Franco Nero himself looks and acts a heck of a lot like Clint Eastwood, the cool, silent type. I have to say, Nero looked great on this film! He’s got that tough guy thing down flat; it’s all about the attitude. He’s smart and cunning, always looking out for number one: himself.

The film has a pretty cool atmosphere, the town in which the story takes place in is dreary, cold, wet, muddy…the landscape seems to be eternally drenched in grays. The wind is howling most of the time…I loved that about the film, it had lots of atmosphere. The score was surprisingly good as well, the wardrobe was in my opinion detailed, in short, there’s lots of things to like about Django. It surprised the hell out of me because I have to be honest; I’m not a huge lover of Westerns. I’ve seen a lot of them, but for me a western has to be really, really special in order for me to truly like it.  I love The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Unforgiven (1992), The Quick and the Dead (1995), The Wild Bunch (1969), Magnificent Seven (1960), and of course now I will be adding Django to my list of favorite westerns; I suggest you give it a shot even if you don’t like westerns, it’s that good.

Rating 5 out of 5 

      

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Title: The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lance Henriksen, Keith David, Tobin Bell, Gary Sinise

Review:

The Quick and the Dead isn’t one of those films that purely emerged from the mind and imagination of director Sam Raimi. It wasn’t like Evil Dead (1981) or Darkman (1990) both of which were films born and bred in Sam Raimi’s brain. Nope, on The Quick and the Dead Sam Raimi was a director for hire. He was personally chosen by Sharon Stone herself for this film because she loved what he did on Army of Darkness (1993). So here was Sam Raimi, coming out of the moderate success of Army of Darkness, doing his first “director for hire” picture. How did it go?

An awesome cast makes this an awesome western!

The Quick and the Dead centers around a shoot out contest that takes place in the Western town of Redemption. This contest attracts a varied group of gunmen from all over the Old West. The twist comes when we find out that one of these gunmen is actually a gun woman who goes by the name of ‘Lady’. She signs up for the contest but doesn’t reveal the true nature of her plans: exacting sweet revenge on the man who was responsible for the death of her father! It just so happens that this man is the towns mayor; an abusive politician named Herod who squeezes tons of tax money from peoples pockets and lives a life of luxury at their expense. Will she ever muster up the courage needed to go up against Herod and his men? Will she ever get the revenge that she came for?

One of the things that makes The Quick and the Dead special is the fact that it has a female lead in the role; normally western films have a male lead in them. I figure studios think females don’t really give a damn about cowboy movies so why make one with a female lead? But this one was just a little different. It has an ass kicking female playing the lead character in the form of Sharon Stone, who's one tough cookie on this movie. Though many of the men in Redemption enlists in the contest, somebody protests saying that ladies shouldn’t be allowed to enter. Herod, the towns mayor played by a scene stealing Gene Hackman says “we don’t have nothing against ladies entering the contest, it’s just that ladies can’t shoot for shit!” All the men in the room laugh when he says this. It's right then and there that , and Lady proceeds to show them what she’s made off by shooting her gun faster and quicker then all of them thought she could. So this movie is different that way. Sharon Stone carries the whole film on her shoulders. She’s the ‘Blondie’ of this film. She smokes a thin cigar, says very little and answers almost everything in two syllables. To her credit I will say that she was appropriately bad ass in this film, equal parts sexy and tough.

Sadly, this film was a complete bomb at the box office and an abysmal failure for Sam Raimi who started to doubt his abilities as a director. “I felt like I was a dinasour. That I couldn’t change with each film” But Im guessing that wasn’t the case. Raimi remains a great stylist in my book, he’s kind of lost touch with that in his recent films (Spider Man 3 and Drag Me to Hell) but Im hopeful that he still has a couple of great films in him. The failure of this film can be attributed to a common ailment in action films: having a female in the lead in a genre whose target audience is mostly males. I don’t get this because, shouldn’t guys be happy to get a western with an incredibly beautiful actress in the lead role? But whatever, films like Supergirl (1984), Red Sonja (1985), Barb Wire (1996), Elektra (2005), Aeon Flux (2005), Catwoman (2004) and Ultraviolet (2006), with very rare exceptions, continue to bomb at the box office. But of course, this could have to do something with the fact that these movies are pretty bad to begin with. I guess the real question would be why doesn’t Hollywood make better films with female heroes in them? You make a good action film, with a female lead and it will be a hit just as much as the ones with male leads in them. Look at Salt (2010) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), two examples of successful action films with a female playing the lead.

Sam Raimis stylish direction remains a major asset of this film

But forget that noise; Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead was bad ass. This film not finding its audience was a real tragedy because, not only is this film a great western, it’s also one of Sam Raimi’s best films. At least in my book it is. When Sharon Stone (one of the films producers) chose Raimi as the director for this project, she thought that Raimi showed promise in Army of Darkness and that The Quick and the Dead was going to be the film where he could really come full circle and fine tune his directorial skills, which he achieved wonderfully as far as Im concerned. The film is filled with many signature Sam Raimi camera moves. The lightning flash zoom in, quick camera moves and odd angles make this one a stylish western. Raimi gives it his own distinctive style by placing the camera in extremely interesting places. Like for example when characters load their guns, the camera is actually on the gun itself! In one scene a gunsman shoots his gun and the camera becomes the bullet…little things like that let you know that yes, you are watching a Sam Raimi film. That, plus it’s got the word ‘Dead’ in the title.

Aside from Raimi’s camera play, we also get memorable heroes and villains and a great story to go with them. The contests attracts all sorts of gunslingers to Redemption, each one of them a unique character. For example, Lance Henriksen plays a gunslinger named Ace, because he is renowned for being so great. He likes to do tricks with his pack of cards, which are all aces. We get another gunslinger who’s a gun for hire, another one is a ruthless ex-con, another one is a young kid, and so forth. Behind the characters lays a story of connected lives. They all live under the oppressive reign of Herod, the films villain played by the one and only Gene Hackman who eats up the screen whenever he appears. There’s this awesome scene in wich Sharon Stone is planning on shooting Herod down, but she is so intimidated by the words he speaks that she doesn’t even dare pull the trigger! Now that’s what I call a villain! On top of this, every other character on this film is played by a recognizable actor before they got famous. Russell Crowe is here playing a Priest who’s looking for redemption. He had an ugly past as a gunslinger and is looking to make his peace with God by becoming a priest. Leo DiCaprio plays ‘The Kid’ who also happens to be the son of Herod, the villain. Even Jigsaw himself is here playing a gunslinger who’s looking to kill ‘Lady’. All in all, this film has a solid cast! So much so, that if this film had been made today, with the exact same cast, it would have cost a hell of a lot more money then what it cost back in those days when a lot of these actors were virtual unknowns.

So let’s see, the cinematography is excellent, the music is top notch, the whole cast really makes the whole thing worthwhile, what’s not to like in this picture? Nothing! It is a great homage to Sergio Leone films and westerns in general. We have the lead without a name; we get the revenge that drives the plot of the film. We even get the helpless towns folk who can’t fight for themselves, so they end up looking for the right gunslinger to save them from the oppressive villain. And we got the showdowns at noon. Basically, everything and anything you could ever want to see in a western. This is a highly underrated Sam Raimi film in desperate need of some love and attention!

Rating: 5 out of 5