MJB784
I didn't get what was so good about it. I thought it was silly and boring. The action scenes didn't have a clear tone for me. I liked Tom Selleck and the locations, but it reminded me of Two Mules For Sister Sara when Quigley was with the girl throughout. It was ok.
Leofwine_draca
QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER is a straightforward Australian western starring journeyman hero Tom Selleck as an American gunslinger who arrives in the rural outback in order to take a new job working for rich landowner Alan Rickman. Selleck's skill is with a super-powered rifle which can hit targets over 1,200 yards away.The problem with this film is its predictability. It's obvious from the outset that Rickman will be the stock villain of the piece and so it transpires. Rickman was going through a string of villainous turns after his appearance in DIE HARD in 1988 but is rather subdued in this film and was much better in the following year's ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES in a pure pantomime performance. He was the main reason I tuned in, anyway. Cult favourite Roger Ward plays a henchman alongside a young and ginger Ben Mendelsohn, a Hollywood treasure these days.Inevitably this film deals with racism in the treatment of Aborigines by the white settlers. The scenes with the Aboriginal characters are among the best in the movie and there are some pretty shocking violent moments in a film which otherwise has a TV movie feel to it. Selleck falls foul of the bad guys but you just know he'll get revenge come the stock climax. One interesting thing about the production is its depiction of mental illness, something that writers and producers usually shy away from, but it's handled quite sensitively here.
Robert J. Maxwell
Alan Rickman, a British actor of considerable talent, was so effective as the toothy, treacherous villain in "Die Hard" that he gets to play the same role here. This time he owns a huge ranch in Australia, has convict laborers, a gang of henchman, and bothersome Australian Aborigines who butcher an occasional cow. They're savages all right, just like the Comanche, but they're smart enough to stay just out of rifle range.Rickman is clever. None of these sneering, ruthless villains is ever truly stupid. He hires Matt Quigley, Tom Selleck, as an exterminator, although Selleck didn't know what the job entails. Selleck simply is the best long-distance shooter in the world and has a long, heavy, modified Sharps carbine to prove it. Why, with his supercharged cartridges and his complicated sighting mechanism, he can shoot holes in objects that are so far away that they're beyond the curve of the horizon.But when Rickman reveals the mission for which Selleck was hired -- namely killing every black man, woman, and child in sight -- he wordlessly scowls and throws Rickman through the dining room window. Now, Selleck is an engaging, lightweight actor, but this part -- the taciturn man of principle with unimaginable skills -- belongs to John Wayne.Rickman has his goons beat hell out of Selleck. They throw in a beating for Laura San Giacomo, who is there only to prove that Selleck is heterosexual. The two unconscious good people are taken by wagon a day's drive from the ranch and dumped to starve and die of thirst. The last of the two ruffians who have transported San Giacomo and Selleck makes the mistake of getting too close to Tom and bringing that big Sharps rifle. One hooligan down, by force of hidden knife. The other takes off at full speed in the wagon, while Selleck spends an agonizing minute or two getting himself together, loading the rifle, taking aim, almost passing out, and finally firing at a target so far away that it shimmers in the heat, like Omar Sheriff riding out the desert on his camel. Does Selleck hit his mark? Right through the head.There follows a drawn-out intermittent battle between Selleck and the girl, on the one hand, and Rickman and his snarling gang on the other. At one point, Selleck and San Giacomo fall exhausted into the dust, dying. They are rescued by Aborigines who apparently have the same spiritual healing power as the American Indians.The Aborigines have made Selleck and his rifle into an icon because he's protecting them from the predations of Rickman's men. Knowing this, Rickman baits a trap for Selleck by herding dozens of Aborigines to the edge of a cliff and kicking them off to their deaths, in hopes that Selleck will show up to rescue them. I realize this is so brutal that it sounds like a contrivance but it isn't. Check the fate of the aborigines in Tasmania, the ones who didn't survive to be kidnapped and transplanted to Flinder's Island, the ones who were rounded up and shot like animals in an attempt to exterminate them.Well -- why go on. I always get a kick out of a story about a man with almost superhuman skills. I identify with him because I have so many superhuman skills myself. And when Selleck's rocket-powered bullets hit those distant targets, there is a loud WHAP, the victim is yanked from his horse, and is dead before he hits the ground. Of course the bad guys do a lot of shooting too but they always miss.I don't think I need to tell you how it ends. Guess.
XweAponX
Great mostly due to the incredible scenery, Tom Selleck stands up with veteran films actors like Alan Rickman and Laura San Giacomo and holds his own. His Magnum PI Style mixed with a small amount of "Robert Mitchum competence" gives him a bit of flair, and contrast to the Australian actors.The feel of this film is that of a big-time Hollywood western, this is about as far west as one can get. Along with the familiar horses and guns, there are also dingos and kangaroos. Instead of Native Americans, there are Native Australians, and there is as much of a parallel here as there is with the western United States. Alan Rickman is the quintessential bloated bad-guy.The score by Basil Poledouris is very "Magnificent Sevenish" - You can hear strains of Quigly is Basil's other work, like Starship Troopers- Actually, a LOT of Quigly's themes were reproduced in Starship Troopers, but this is why I liked Composers like Alfred Hitchcocks Bernard Herrman and Sergio Leone's Ennio Merricone.The director of Lonesome Dove Simon Wincer sells the story, written by novelist John Hill...And all of Australia is the set.Favourite quote from the film is "Got no use for a Colt, never said I couldn't use one". One very pleasant moment in the film is where Quigley makes a very Clint-Eastwoodish/Josey Wales gesture by spitting on the ground- Watch for that.
