peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2023 04 10 QuigleyDownUnder

Quigley Down Under (1990)

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A Ben Mendohlson-in-1990 jag from The Big Steal. Here he is a minor banana to big cheese sharpshooter Tom Selleck, tasked with putting the colonials in their place, and generic bad dude quick-draw-McGraw Alan Rickman. Kids starting out today, don't do the red hair thing. Notionally Rickman runs a cattle station in some mythical red-dirt place not too far from Fremantle and Chambers Pillar whose main business seems to be eradicating Aborigines as he and his men otherwise sit around doing nothing. The Aborigines are peace-loving mystics. Selleck (Quigley) brings Laura San Giacomo ("Crazy Cora" who suffers from PTSD) as the matinée format requires. They jointly rescue/steal an Aboriginal baby from a massacre who she then saves from the dingoes. Everything works out in the end.

In two sittings as it's just too stale. The shoot was probably more fun than the resultant movie, which is annoying as they had all the ingredients to make something less boring.

Roger Ebert: two-and-a-half stars. If only it wasn't so dumb (see IMDB goofs). Janet Maslin: anachronistic. Ozmovies: apparently the station homestead etc. was built out at Ross River.