Here is a Western much like many others, with the difference that it is the first new Western I’ve seen in a long time — since “Silverado” in 1985, I think, unless you count last year’s “Back to the Future Part III.” A generation of moviegoers, now in their teens, have grown up never having seen a Western in a movie theater. Cowboy movies are too genteel, maybe, or the violence follows a code instead of being mindless, or maybe the kids today just can’t see themselves riding horses.
“Quigley Down Under” stars Tom Selleck, an actor who with his height, authority and natural ease might have been a major Western star in the old days, as an American sharpshooter who sails to Australia in search of work. A man named Marston (Alan Rickman) has advertised for a long-distance marksman, and Selleck is the best, able to hit targets so far away the camera can barely see them. Selleck is appalled, however, when he discovers that Marston wants to pay him to kill Aborigines. He throws the villain through the window, and starts a vendetta that only ends, of course, with an obligatory showdown in the corral.
One of the first people Quigley meets down under is Crazy Cora, played by Laura San Giacomo as a misplaced American with a tragic past that has driven her mad – but not so mad that Quigley cannot slowly fall in love with her. “S, lies and videotape” (1989) is the movie that made San Giacomo an overnight star, but this may be the movie that proves her staying power. She isn’t just another pretty face and a great set of eyebrows. She has an authority, a depth of presence, that is attractive, and her voice is deep and musical. She and Selleck create a chemistry that is real enough; it’s a shame the screenplay hardly notices it.
