Sam Raimi does it again with this affectionate and entertaining take on the western genre. It's a light-hearted and simple film, comfortable to whizz along with a witty script delivered by an ensemble cast, and while you won't see anything new here, the wild west staples are delivered with relish and gusto. Made soon after ARMY OF DARKNESS, this is very much in the EVIL DEAD style, with all manner of camera tricks and transformations to mark it out as something standing separate from the rest.

I always appreciate a good cast and here's a film that doesn't disappoint. As the heroine, Sharon Stone manages to be fairly engaging, which is unusual considering the rest of her filmography. Still, she's overshadowed by some excellent fellow cast members, including Russell Crowe in his first Hollywood film. What a choice! A youthful Leonardo DiCaprio manages to be fairly non-irritating playing "The Kid", and an excellent cast of stereotyped 'bad guy' actors fill out the nefarious roles.

There's SAW villain Tobin Bell, trusty stalwart Keith David, good old Lance Henriksen as a sharp shooter and best of all Gene Hackman, lording it up as the arch nemesis who rules his town with an iron fist. Lots of familiar faces (like Gary Sinise and Pat Hingle) also pop up, making this enjoyable just for the cast. But the fun twists and turns in the plot, the various shoot-outs (never boring, despite being so plentiful),and the little touches like the hole in the shadow make this a genuinely enjoyable movie. Good work, Sam!

Although The Quick and the Dead is primarily remembered among film fans starring Sharon Stone as a revenge seeking frontier woman, for me the film stands out because of Gene Hackman. As John Herod, outlaw kingpin and ruler of the outlaw town of Redemption, Hackman is one of the most evil people ever created in any film genre.

Sharon Stone has excellent reasons for wanting this man dead, although the truth is the key to the whole film and I won't say. Suffice to say, she's learned the gunman's trade and more than holds her own with any of the male competitors.

In westerns about outlaw towns the usual is for the outlaws to respect each other as they are all men on the dodge. That's not what you get in The Quick and the Dead. Hackman for his sadistic amusement decides to conduct a fast draw contest, a kind of fast draw Superbowl. He's even kidnapped a former member of his band, Russell Crowe, who has renounced violence and become a preacher. And his unacknowledged offspring Leonardo DiCaprio is in the contest as well.

There is of course a big similarity to the Kirk Douglas/Johnny Cash western, A Gunfight. But in that it was just the two of them staging a contest for both pride and money. That's expanded on quite a bit in The Quick and the Dead.

I thought Gene Hackman was brilliant in the Clint Eastwood classic, The Unforgiven. Brilliant and evil also. But Hackman's character of a town marshal in The Unforgiven is a boy scout next to the outlaw kingpin of The Quick and the Dead.

Ellen (Sharon Stone) is a mysterious gunslinger who signs up for a gun draw competition. Herod (Gene Hackman) is the evil leader of the town who devise the competition to draw out all his would-be assassins. Cort (Russell Crowe) is a prisoner forced to fight again. Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the young buck looking to make a name for himself.

Director Sam Raimi has made a pretty simple western movie. There is a bit of a backstory of Herod's history with Ellen. The only interesting thing is that the lead gunfighter is a woman. Sharon Stone really does her best to be Clint Eastwood for what it's worth. The style just isn't rough or gritty. It moves along just enough to be watchable.