The Quick and the Dead Blu-ray: Review By Mushy

Ellen (Sharon Stone) is a female gunslinger who comes into town to settle a score. The town in question is run by Herod (Gene Hackman) who also holds a gunslinging competition. Cort (Russell Crowe) is a man who vows never to pick up a gun again due to something that happened in his past. Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio) is basically there to watch the events unfold and comment on them. As this film plays out Cort and Ellen eventually team up against Herod, who we also learn killed Ellen's father. While this movie doesn't play as a conventional western, it does try and take the genre into new directions.

The Quick and the Dead is the kind of movie that you either get or you don't. It is filled with nuance and solid performances, yet it takes a very post-modern look at the western.

MovieIQ

During the film there are real time in-movie information about the cast, crew and music, yet this is only available via BD-Live. I think it might be time to admit that the whole BD-Live, connect the movie to the internet via your player idea... is kind of a dud. First of all, in the part of my house where my player is, I had such a hard time maintaining the internet connection that I eventually had to jettison watching the film in this way.

1080p High Definition / 1.85:1 - This movie looked pretty darn good in the Blu-ray disc format. While it may not be your traditional western in terms of story, plot, mood and pacing, what I did like about it was that the town depicted in the movie didn't feel like a set. The place felt lived in, old, dusty and a great deal of this had to do with the picture quality. This movie seems like it is really breathing well on this disc. I didn't notice any pixilation even in the darkest of dark parts of the screen. Solid work, Sony!

English, French Dolby TrueHD 5.1 - Subtitled in English and French. This film sounded really good as well. Once I fixed the audio levels I found the sound on this disc, much like the picture, contributed to making The Quick and the Dead take on the appearance of a western. From the gunshots, to glass breaking, to horses riding up and down, I found that everything sounded really well put together here. The mix was such that it was consistent throughout this film and I never felt the need to re-adjust the audio either higher or lower.

Stone, Hackman, Crowe and DiCaprio are on hand on this front cover as their images loom over the town. The back gives us a cast shot with all the characters in character. There is a tiny description of what this movie is about, a technical specs list, a special feature list (yes, feature... as there is only one), and a cast list.

Basically, if you want Marshall Matt Dillon, if you want John Wayne... heck, if you want Kevin Costner, you don't get that here.