A mysterious woman comes to compete in a quick-draw elimination tournament, in a town taken over by a notorious gunman.

Credits: TheMovieDb.

Film Cast:

• Ellen: Sharon Stone
• John Herod: Gene Hackman
• Cort: Russell Crowe
• Kid: Leonardo DiCaprio
• Dog Kelly: Tobin Bell
• Doc Wallace: Roberts Blossom
• Eugene Dred: Kevin Conway
• Sgt. Clay Cantrell: Keith David
• Ace Hanlon: Lance Henriksen
• Horace the Bartender: Pat Hingle
• Marshall: Gary Sinise
• Scars: Mark Boone Junior
• Katie: Olivia Burnette
• Mattie Silk: Fay Masterson
• Ratsy: Raynor Scheine
• Charlies Moonlight: Woody Strode
• Blind Boy: Jerry Swindall
• Gold Teeth Man: Scott Spiegel
• Spotted Horse: Jonothon Gill
• Gutzon: Sven-Ole Thorsen
• Foy: Lennie Loftin
• Foy’s Boy: Matthew Gold
• Carlos Montoya: Arturo Gastelum
• Simp Dixon: David Cornell
• Virgil Sparks: Josef Rainer
• Young Ellen: Stacy Linn Ramsower
• Zeb: Tony Lee Boggs
• Gunfighter: Scott Ryder
• Man in Bar: Timothy Patrick Quill
• Man on Veranda: Solomon Abrams
• Bordello Swell: John Cameron
• Counselor: Michael Stone
• Saloon Patron: Butch Molina
• Young Herod’s Man: Mick Garris
• Young Herod’s Man: Greg Goossen
• Young Herod’s Man: Oliver Dear
• Teenager (uncredited): Ruben Angelo
• Townsman (uncredited): James Cotner

Film Crew:

• Producer: Joshua Donen
• Director: Sam Raimi
• Director of Photography: Dante Spinotti
• Producer: Allen Shapiro
• Editor: Pietro Scalia
• Unit Production Manager: Patrick Markey
• Executive Producer: Robert Tapert
• Executive Producer: Toby Jaffe
• Screenplay: Simon Moore
• Steadicam Operator: Kyle Rudolph
• Set Decoration: Hilton Rosemarin
• Camera Operator: Gary Jay
• Unit Publicist: Stanley Brossette
• Property Master: Ellen Freund
• Production Supervisor: Karen Hughes
• Art Direction: Steve Saklad
• Color Timer: David Orr
• Art Department Coordinator: Phillipa Sledge
• Still Photographer: Murray Close
• Co-Producer: Chuck Binder
• Stunts: Dean Smith
• Stunts: Doc Elliot
• Stunts: Francis Rockwell
• Stunts: Dennis Dion
• Costume Design: Judianna Makovsky
• Second Unit Director: Terry Leonard
• Stunts: Tori Davis
• Stunts: William Morts
• Stunts: James Alan Hensz
• Stunts: Byron Wilkerson
• Stunts: Troy Brown
• Stunt Coordinator: Doc Duhame
• Stunts: R.J. Chambers
• Stunts: Teri Garland
• Stunts: Moore Brian
• Stunts: Robin Baldwin
• Production Design: Patrizia von Brandenstein
• Stunts: Megan Wilkerson
• Stunts: Robert Lee
• Stunts: Thomas DeWier
• Stunts: Jeff Smolek
• Stunts: Kurt Bryant
• Stunts: Ronald LaCaria
• Stunts: Alan Becker
• Co-Producer: Sharon Stone
• Original Music Composer: Alan Silvestri
• Supervising Sound Editor: Larry Mann
• Supervising Sound Editor: Jay Kamen
• Special Effects Coordinator: Al Di Sarro
• Makeup Artist: Gary Liddiard
• Key Hair Stylist: Bunny Parker
• Makeup Artist: Fred C. Blau Jr.
• Makeup Artist: Kimberly Felix
• Hairstylist: Kathe Swanson
• Hairstylist: Paul LeBlanc
• First Assistant Director: John Cameron
• Assistant Art Director: James F. Truesdale
• Assistant Art Director: Richard Fernandez
• Assistant Set Decoration: Helen Britten
• Assistant Costume Designer: Sarah Edwards
• Costume Supervisor: Bruce Ericksen
• Makeup Artist: Tricia Sawyer
• Stunts: Chuck Henson

Movie Reviews:

• John Chard: Nice try from Raimi, but ultimately it creeps just above average.
• The Western is a tough genre to tackle in the modern age, more so when it’s post Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven’s masterclasses 101. But tackling both these challenges is nothing to the one which director Sam Raimi asks of the audience in his stab at the genre.
• A female gunslinger is here played by a Hollywood beauty, Sharon Stone, but she isn’t right for the lead role. She obviously looks gorgeous and she broods and pouts better than most of her modern day peers, but she lacks a menacing streak, a bit of believable nastiness that just might have lifted the film to better heights. We understand and expect the vulnerability she shows, but to succeed here in the testosterone fuelled town of Redemption, she’s going to have to convince as a tough gal. And Stone just isn’t up to the task.
• The film does have good points to enjoy though, very much so. The story, although gimmicky, works well as an entertaining popcorn munching tale, while the cast list reads like a whose who of solid and quality thespers, (Gene Hackman wandering in from Unforgiven to play Little Bill’s ghost, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DeCaprio, Keith David, Pat Hingle & Lance Henriksen). Also into the plus column is the always impressive cinematography from Dante Spinotti, and there is no denying Sam Raimi’s keen eye for detail, with his zooming shots a real treat during the shoot out sequences – his Spaghetti Western leanings further enhanced by Alan Silvestri’s pasta influenced score.
• Yet in spite of this bravado attempt, and acknowledging that the makers have tried something different, The Quick & The Dead isn’t quite quick enough on the draw to outlive the leading lady misstep. 6/10
• CinemaSerf: Now I saw this in the cinema in 1995 and had somehow managed to completely forget all about it – until I saw it again just last week and realised why. It’s not that it is awful, it’s just that it is so very derivative and very, very dependant on Gene Hackman (“Herod”) who walks a fine line between menace and ham in a none too convincing fashion. He is running a to-the-death gun slinging competition – almost like one of the chivalric jousts of old – with the winner having to face him in the final shoot-out for an huge poke. Sharon Stone (“Ellen”) arrives in his dingy town just at the start of the process determined to avenge her father’s killer; Russell Crowe is “Cort”, a preacher who also has a pretty violent past and “the Kid” (Leonardo di Caprio) who has the clear belief that his youth and skill make him all but immortal are all coaxed, cajoled and threatened into participating in this game of death. Sam Raimi has all the ingredients of a great little western adventure, but the cast don’t work well together at all. Stone is well past her potent best and the usual guy-with-a-grudge theme is now so hackneyed as to render this little better than a series of gunfights with characters about whom I could not care less. The cinematography and some of the photographic styles are interesting, though – the film has a classy look to it and Alan Silvestri creates some tension with his slightly untypical (for a western) score; but the whole is nowhere near the sum of the parts leaving us with something that now, more than ever, just looks like it’s been made for telly.