Quigley Down Under (DVD)

...that's what the main character, Quigley ( played by a highly effective Tom Selleck ) uses. This weapon was a very different proposition to a pistol of the day. Whilst it was a single shot device, i.e. you had to reload it again, technological advances mean that it was cartridge based and therefore much faster to reload. The Sharps rifle Quigley uses in the movie was an under lever breech loading rifle which meant all you had to do was fire it, pull ...
...brilliantly by Alan Rickman ), Quigley informs him that the weapon is experimental and Rickman asks him to prove how effective it is. To do this he sends a rider out with a wooden bucket which he will drop at a certain range and Quigley then has to shoot it.

This scene is absolutely magical as Quigley sends the rider off into the distance, so far away infact that you cannot even see the bucket. He then takes aim, testing the wind, ... more

If you read my other reviews here you will see a pattern, I love movies that treat accepted formats in a different way to the norm and I love movies with unusual characters where you have no pre/past history to deal with and you find out about them as the movie progresses. It makes the movie more realistic and when dealing with an action based subject matter, where people are in extreme situations, it allows me to escape the boredom of everyday life and live in someone else's life.

I am a person who craves adventure and I have had more than my fair share of them in my life but as the years have gone on, the adventures had started to get less frequent and I thank god that movies like this exist. We all watch movies for different reasons and for me it's the escapism aspect that I crave, even if is only for a few hours.

This movie is such a vehicle for me. It is a western but it deals with the format in a completely different way to the norm. It is set in Australia in the 1870's, the right period but wrong continent and the central character is an American sharpshooter, not your usual gunfighter then.

The story is based on historical fact, although the actual story line here is pure fiction and one of the things I really like about it is that the weapons and the way they would have used them is historically accurate.

For example, being set in the 1870's the revolvers were all Colts of various calibres. To load the weapons you had to put the powder into the individual cylinders of the chamber from the front and then load the ball type shot by hand and then use the ramrod lever built into the pistol under the barrel of the weapon, you then had to load the six cylinders with a fresh percussion cap and then it was ready to fire. There weapons where not the quick loading type favoured by John Wayne where you simply loaded a fresh cartridge into the chambers, they were hard work to load and it took a long time and historically they were know to explode in your hands sometimes as the charge you had just fired, ignited all the others. It gives the term " deadly weapon " a whole new meaning.

They were subsequently highly inaccurate, depending on the volume of powder added you might have an effective range of 30 ft with an accurate killing range of around 10 ft. Forget all this quick draw and shooting people 50 to 100 ft away, it just didn't happen, they were really extremely close quarters weapons and although they would kill you, the shot was generally soft, lead balls which would flatten upon impact and would probably cause more wounds than actual killing impacts, although the chances were that if you did get wounded you would eventually die from blood and wound poisoning, etc.

The weapon that was more beneficial to you in those days was the rifle and that's what the main character, Quigley ( played by a highly effective Tom Selleck ) uses. This weapon was a very different proposition to a pistol of the day. Whilst it was a single shot device, i.e. you had to reload it again, technological advances mean that it was cartridge based and therefore much faster to reload. The Sharps rifle Quigley uses in the movie was an under lever breech loading rifle which meant all you had to do was fire it, pull the lever and the fired cartridge would eject and you could load a new one in, etc. The other main advantage was that it had a huge effective range in comparison to a Colt revolver and in the movie; Quigley's weapon has been extensively modified so that it has a range well in excess of a mile.

To demonstrate this, there is a scene in the movie where having just arrived at the " ranch " of his employer, ( played absolutely brilliantly by Alan Rickman ), Quigley informs him that the weapon is experimental and Rickman asks him to prove how effective it is. To do this he sends a rider out with a wooden bucket which he will drop at a certain range and Quigley then has to shoot it.

This scene is absolutely magical as Quigley sends the rider off into the distance, so far away infact that you cannot even see the bucket. He then takes aim, testing the wind, exactly as a professional sniper would today, and then with all the people laughing thinking there is not way he will ever hit the bucket, Quigley proceeds to put 3 or 4 shots into it, the look on the people faces has to be seen to be believed and this one moment would put this movie into the must see category, however, that's just one element there are many, many more of them.

I don't intend to detail them all here, you need to see the film for yourselves but it soon becomes clear that even with a single shot capability over that of the 6 shot capability of the revolver, the rifle has the major advantage and this is used to good effect as Quigley fights the land owner and eventually kills him and most of his men.

There is a twist at the end as well. Having captured Quigley, Rickman decides to have a classic western gunfighter shoot out in the open at his ranch. Only being sadistic and cruel, he gives Quigley a pistol and then has himself and two others stand against Quigley. Having already had a conversation with Quigley earlier in the movie about the differences between the pistol and rifle, Rickman doesn't think Quigley will be any good with the pistol as he indicated that he couldn't fire one, however, he was very wrong and after shooting all 3 of them in a classic gunfight set piece, Quigley walks over to Rickman and tells him, as he is dying, that he only said he didn't have a use for a pistol, not that he couldn't fire one..........surely one of the best gunfights ever put on the screen?.........I think so.

The story revolves around the Land Owners Expansion programme where the law ( The Victorian British Government ) allowed land owners to expand their property by " relocation " the indigenous population, i.e. the Aborigines.

One such land owner's ( Rickman ) version of relocation is to kill the Aborigines, however, as soon as his horsemen ( all convicts ) show themselves the Aborigines take flight and he has not been able to eradicate them by these means so he placed an advert out to various countries in the world to hire a sharpshooter to rid himself of the aborigines ( although the ad indicates that it is Dingos ( wild dogs ) that are the targets ) and Quigley answers the ad and after being offered the job promptly sails to Australia.

After arriving Quigley finds out who the real targets are and not being a murderer, sets about wiping out Rickman and his men. Its all about adventure and Tom Selleck brings his own version of humour and acting to this role of Gunfighter and it works brilliantly.

There are also a lot of set pieces and other equally different and entertaining elements to the movie, including a mad women who Quigley saves, some beautiful interaction with the Aborigines who knowing he is there to help them, saves their lives out in the bush and also at the end of the movie. It offers fantastic scenery, very impressive acting from all cast members and a brilliant story.

But more than all this, it takes an excepted format and reinvents it whilst providing extremely good entertainment and something for everyone. The fact that everything is historically correct only adds to the flavour and it really is a good movie for all of this.

There are many strong moralistic messages in it and it uses the good against evil formula to excellent effect and also shows us that just because the " pack " goes in one direction, we all have the choice to disagree and go our own way. Quigley is a hero but not your typical one, his character is highly principled and moralistic but he is not afraid to take a life to prove his point and like the classic western hero, he shows no fear and has utter contempt for his enemy. He doesn't have to fight for the Aborigines, he could easily escape, however, he chooses to stay and fight for them and in doing so, lets us into his character.

And what a character it is, this is no High Plains Drifter type character, he is not cold or ruthless, except in his treatment of his enemy, he is kind, caring and highly compassionate and extremely good at what he does. Yes he does have the typical extraordinary skill element that most movie gunfighters have, but his skill is one that has been learned and you see this in him from the start, therefore, he is not a mystical character, he is a real and very human one and this adds credibility to the movie and makes it very different from the John Wayne type hero who quite frankly is not credible ( well not to me at any rate ). When you watch this movie you really can image yourself as Quigley because you know that this is exactly how you would behave if you were put in the same situation and that's one of the facets which make it highly watchable and extremely enjoyable

An unusual movie then and one worth seeing, do I recommend it?........absolutely.

 

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