Schneller als der Tod (1995)

Schneller als der Tod: Directed by Sam Raimi. With Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio. A female gunfighter returns to a frontier town where a dueling tournament is being held, which she enters in an effort to avenge her father’s death.

“Yes, I know the critics at the time panned it. But if that was the baseline for greatness, films like Wonderful Life and Citizen Kane would be lost to obscurity. Bottom line, this is a u0026quot;high conceptu0026quot; film that is much more entertaining than you would guess. The timeline is fascinating. In the 1960s, after a half-century run, and massive exposure on the new medium called Television, the classic western started to disappear. But, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum; and at the same time the sun started to set on the traditional western, it started to rise on something called the u0026quot;italian westernsu0026quot; or re-imaginings of the genre from Europe. This is for example how Clint Eastwood went from forgotten TV actor (Rawhide) to #1 box office attraction. This new genre lasted barely 15 years or so and soon disappeared as well. Yet out of nowhere, 20 years later someone in Tinseltown gets the idea to re-imagine the ALREADY RE-IMAGINED western, this time starring a female. Sharon Stone was past the apex of her career by this point, making the project more of a challenge. The other talent was awesome. A pre-Oscar Russell Crowe, a pre-Titanic diCaprio, and all backstopped by Hackman, I mean, wow. The big question, did it actually work? Answer yes. It was uneven in parts and an argument could be made that Hackman overdid the u0026quot;bad guyu0026quot; role or, alternatively, the part was over-written. Stone was awesome, proving she had the chops to take on a bizarre role and make it hers. Actually gets better with each successive viewing.”