Quigley Down Under [Blu-ray] Reviews

After John Wayne stopped making movies and some of the legendary directors like John Ford, Raoul Walsh, and Howard Hawks were no longer working, westerns fell out of fashion at the movies. (A similar fate befell them on television, too.) Occasionally a Bite the Bullet, Comes a Horseman, or Silverado popped up, but most filmmakers steered clear of them until Kevin Costner hit the home run with Dances With Wolves. Simon Wincer’s Quigley Down Under was a year or so ahead of its time. Had it come out after the Oscar-winning smash success of Dances With Wolves, it might have ridden the wave of revived popularity of the genre and gone on to much greater success. It certainly was deserving of more recognition. Exquisitely shot and featuring a rather clever kind of fish-out-of-water story, Quigley Down Under is quite entertaining and even memorable every now and then. It’s too long for the story it's telling, and it lets itself spend too much time with a subplot that isn’t nearly as precious as its makers want it to be. Still, in retrospect, it can stand tall with the glut of westerns that came to cinemas right after Wolves made a mint.

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