A mix of Once Upon a Time in the West and High Noon, which as it turns out isn’t such a good thing. The fancy camera moves and cuts are well enough executed, and the setting is nice, and Ms. Stone, who is very attractive, wears a lot of cool clothes. Gene Hackman is some actor.
Every one, everything else is terrible. We’re not blaming the poor actors here, or the able technicians. This is a core concept thing. After a strong opening The Quick and the Dead proceeds to dumb, and then to offensive, and finally tops that off with some very unseemly pretense about redemption. The revelation/payoff about the Stone character, which is an escalation of Charles Bronson’s back story in the Leone film, is stupidly sadistic. The little girl shot her dad in the head, eh? I expect (and have often received and been grateful for) better from you, Mr. Raimi! Crass modernity.