Comment by Magic Marmalade:
Classic comic book western.
I saw this at the time of release, and remember being unimpressed by it, as it seemed a little hokey and cartoony for my taste... like Tombstone, it was a little too bombastic and "Hollywood" in all most negative, stereotypical senses...mainly, it felt like a confluence of two prime elements: One, as vehicle to exploit the rising star of Sharon Stone (Just drop her in there, and it'll sell tickets!), and two, to do so in such a manner as to cash in on the western revival / reappraisal that the magnificent:
Unforgiven occasioned...
(
Tombstone, in particular, felt like a ham-fisted cash in, although it is not without it's redeeming qualities, such as Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holiday)
...But I just didn't feel this was anything other than lightweight, throwaway rubbish.
That is, until I just re-watched it, having found the DVD in a charity shop, and thought: "I'll give it another go, I suppose".
The thing is, thanks to the intervening years, I can now re-evaluate it based on what it is, not what I that it wasn't, which I just didn't get at the time...
...For this is, in stylistic terms, pure Comic Book / Graphic Novel stuff, of the kind that you might associate with the likes of Robert Rodriguez: Very stylised, with bold, wildly exaggerated cartoon-like characters, and a pure comic book rendering.
And it works.
The tale of a gun-fighting contest held in an oppressed town, dominated by archetype of evil overlord, played to perfection, as usual, by Gene Hackman, in an amplified, exaggerated version of his "Liitle Bill" character from Unforgiven itself (no coincidence this casting, for this reason I think), and featuring a lot of playing to both established types, and types to come by past and future stars of the time: Russell Crowe as a once outlaw turn repentant priest, and therefore reluctant gunfighter (at least elements of his Gladiator character to come), Lance Henriksen as a slimy, weaselly snake man, evil gunfighter, Keith David (just being awesome as usual), and a young and becoming Leonardo DiCaprio as an obnoxious, overly confident gunslinger.
And all wrapped up in one key fact, that explains a lot of what this is, and what it presaged:
Directed by
Sam Raimi.
In fact, his quirky, darkly humorous style from the likes of Evil Dead, and Darkman, expressed on a big ol' budget here is probably what got him the Spiderman job, as it perfectly illustrates, and predicts, his handling of the Comic Book style, and sets the stamp of how to do that kind of movie for years and decades to come.
And lastly, it would be remiss of me not to mention Sharon Stone, who gives a much more rounded performance than I remembered, adn carries the whole affair pretty strongly, even among such heavyweight company.
So this kinetic, Crash! Bang! Pow! comic book western, laced with notes of nuance, is all in all, a pretty great piece of Saturday night movie popcorn fare.
(With all this bombast and melodrama, this would be a pretty awesome one to see back in the cinema!)
