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Experimental Weapon, Experimental Ammunition

Posted in General Comments, Movie Review, Movies, Quotes, Reviews, tagged Alan Rickman, American Western Genre, Australian Aboriginies, Die Hard, Elliott Marston, Galaxy Quest, General Comments, Harry Potter, Laura San Giacomo, Matthew Quigley, Moderate To Strong Movie Recommendation, Movie Reviews, Professor Snape, Quigley Down Under -- movie review, Quotes, Reviews, Shakespeare, Sharps Rifle, Tom Selleck on August 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“Quigley Down Under” (1990) — movie review
Today’s review is for the 1990 Western-Australian hybrid: “Quigley Down Under“, starring Tom Selleck as Matthew Quigley (an American sharpshooter with a moral compass), Alan Rickman as Elliott Marston (a sadistic land baron with delusions of grandeur), and Laura San Giacomo as “Crazy Cora” (a traumatized woman with a tragic past).

Background: I frontloaded this film for viewing after a recent watch of “Galaxy Quest” reminded me how good Alan Rickman was. From Shakespearean alien to dark wizard to British “landed” gentry to colonial villain (in this film), Rickman’s range is usually worth watching a film for. I’ve never seen this film, but YouTube reminded me it is one of the few Westerns set in Australia — a genre mashup that seemed interesting.

Basic Plot: Quigley, a cowboy marksman from the American West, answers a job ad in Australia. He’s offered a job by Marston, a wealthy landowner, to use his long-range rifle skills to eliminate Aboriginal people encroaching on his land. Quigley, upon learning the true nature of the job, refuses. In turn, Marston has Quigley beaten and then (together with Cora) dropped off in the middle of the outback. What follows is a classic Western revenge arc, but with a colonial twist: while trying to survive, Quigley becomes a protector of the oppressed, a reluctant hero navigating an inhospitable land sprinkled with familiar and cruel (human) injustices. “Crazy” Cora is a woman haunted by the loss of her child and marital abandonment. Her bond with Quigley is fragile, tender, but ultimately redemptive. Together, they face Marston’s hired guns and the harsh outback.

Any Good? Acting? Filming / FX? Problems? Did I enjoy it? Short answers: Yes; solid to excellent; visually striking; a few genre clichés; and yes, I did enjoy it.

Acting: I must admit to never really being a Tom Selleck fan, but he is perfectly cast in this role. He plays Quigley as a rough gentleman of few words and appropriately violent actions. His Sharps rifle is an extension of his ethics: he doesn’t shoot unless it matters. Alan Rickman is familiarly cruel as Marston, (a bit of type casting) channeling the same disdainful arrogance he brought to “Die Hard” and “Harry Potter’s” Professor Snape. Laura San Giacomo’s Cora is the emotional heart of the film and (IMHO) she knocks this role out of the park. She’s that good! Her personal trauma is not played for laughs (although it seems that way at the start of the film) or pity — it’s raw, erratic, and ultimately healed / resolved by her facing the demon in her past. Her chemistry with Selleck is slow-developing, but the relationship is also predictable and inevitable. (aka: “happy ending”)

Filming / FX: The Australian outback is filmed like a character — vast, unforgiving, and beautifully desolate. The cinematography emphasizes isolation and scale, making Quigley’s long-range shots feel super-human. The rifle scenes are done with realism, not spectacle – whether or not they’re actually possible. There’s minimal FX. This is a Western, not a superhero flick — but the gun play is clean, the stunts are practical, and the final shootout is satisfying without being overly gratuitous (1 vs 3).

Problems: The villains are intentionally cartoonishly evil, which works surprisingly well in a “modern” Western (“modern” to us post-1990s, as opposed to “early” Hollywood pre-1970s). The Aboriginal characters are noble “savages” and their story / culture pretty under-explained — an Australian substitution representative of the Native American Indian in our Western genre films. If you accept the Western tropes, the film delivers on the “Good versus Evil” story arc and the one against many theme.

Final Recommendation: Moderate to strong. “Quigley Down Under” is a Western with a conscience. It’s not just about shooting bad guys — it’s about deciding who the bad guys are and then standing against them. The film criticizes colonialism without preaching, and gives us a hero who refuses to be complicit in injustice. If you like your Westerns with moral clarity, sweeping landscapes, and a rifle that can hit a target at a thousand yard, this is a film worth viewing.

Final Thoughts: There’s a line near the end where Marston brags about being very good with a pistol. After fatally shooting him, Quigley replies to Marston: “I said I didn’t have much use for them. I never said I didn’t know how to use one.” Up to then, Quigley had been killing most of the bad guys from a distance. At the end, “justice” is delivered to the main bad-guy up close and personal.

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