Scene Stealers: Gene Hackman, The Quick and the Dead

by Scott Weinberg May 15th 2006 // 10:05AM

Filed under: Fandom, Scene Stealers

Our original plan was to mount a weekly series in which we'd applaud a different character actor with each new column. But it seems that this was SUCH a good idea that someone else beat us to the punch ... by about six years. So the Cine-Squad decided to take our "J.T. Walsh Award" and morph it into a feature called "Scene Stealers," which will celebrate great actors and actresses who have A) stolen entire movies with their awesomeness, B) popped up in a particularly juicy cameo or supporting role, or C) salvaged a failed movie simply by being a member of the cast.

For our inaugural Scene Stealers feature, I chose to celebrate Mr. Gene Hackman, mainly because he's my very favorite actor, but also because ... well, have you guys ever actually seen Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead?

Released in February of 1995, The Quick and the Dead was the movie Sam Raimi did between Army of Darkness and A Simple Plan, and it absolutely reeks of old-school Western geekiness. Sort of a "greatest hits album" of Western movie clichés, The Quick and the Dead stars Sharon Stone, Leonardo Di Caprio, Russell Crowe, Gary Sinise, about a dozen fantastic character actors ... and Mr. Gene Hackman, clearly having a BALL as the uber-villainous town father John Herod.

It's almost sinful how much fun Hackman is having here, as if someone gave him a chance to revisit his Oscar-winning role in Unforgiven -- only this time he's playing it very broad, very sly and with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Herod goes from beating down a priest to abusing his only son to shooting practically everyone in town ... plus he has this one drop-dead brilliant sequence in which he gets to open-hand slap Sharon Stone right in the face! (It's awesome, trust me.)

Mr. Hackman's career is, of course, packed to the rafters with effortlessly excellent performances, but his work in The Quick and the Dead still stands as one of my very favorites. It's great to see a seasoned pro chomping into a mega-villain role with so much oily smoothness and uni-faceted hatefulness, and even in a movie absolutely swollen with colorful performances, Hackman still reigns supreme.

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Tags: gene hackman, GeneHackman, leonardo di caprio, LeonardoDiCaprio, quick and the dead, QuickAndTheDead, russell crowe, RussellCrowe, sam raimi, SamRaimi, sharon stone, SharonStone, western movies, WesternMovies

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