Rating: 
Summary: A solid, satisfying western!
Review: This is a very satisfying western. Tom Selleck stars as Matthew Quigley, a sharpshooter of some reputation that is contracted by a ranch owner in Australia, ostensibly to keep vermin from destroying his land. It soon becomes clear, however, that the ranch owner, Elliott Marston (played wonderfully by Alan Rickman) wants Quigley to do a great deal more than knock over dingoes. Selleck is the rightful heir to the throne of John Wayne. He projects the same strength of character that Wayne did and has the same quality that Wayne did when on camera - the viewer's eye is drawn to him regardless of who else is in the shot. He simply seems to fill the screen. His acting has always been underrated. There are few actors working that seem so natural and at ease in front of the lens (Tom Hanks comes to mind.) Also, Selleck is an experienced gun owner, and his handling of the 1874 Sharps Rifle in the film is extremely true to life and accurate all the way. He just seems in his element handling a rifle, or the Colt SAA six-guns he uses toward the end of the film. The real surprise in the film was the performance of Laura San Giacomo. Nothing from the TV series Just Shoot Me ever gave an indication of her acting chops. Here, she gets to stretch out, and she makes the best of it. She is a very fine actress, it turns out. She plays the part of Crazy Cora, a woman who is just hanging around the ranch. When we first meet her, she is clearly crazy. Suffice to say that as the movie progresses, she becomes a romantic interest for Quigley. There is a truly remarkable scene where, in the quiet of a camp at night, she relates the incident in her life that broke her, drover her mad. It is not an easy scene to play, and she handles it perfectly - very understated and very, very moving. It was very pleasant to see, also, a woman in a western that was not just there for pretty scenery or to play off the hero, thereby developing the male character. No. In this film, Cora is a character that has scenes all by herself, using a gun just fine. When the cave scene comes (and you will know it when it comes) watch the light flare in Giacomo's eyes as she finds her strength and fights back - truly a force to be reckoned with. The Cora character grows and develops a great deal in the course of the film, which is no easy trick in a 90 minute movie. If you are not a Selleck fan (as I am), watch his movie for Laura San Giacomo. She is terrific.
Rating: 
Summary: A Classic Western
Review: This movie is as close as they come to the westerns we all grew up with. Selleck is the closest thing to John Wayne and Gary Cooper and one of the few actors today who can still make you believe in the romance of the west. It's only a shame that Selleck has been overlooked by the major studios and relegated to making t.v. westerns. Selleck recently said in an interview that he would love to do another Quigley movie. I hope somebody wakes up soon and puts him back on the big screen where he belongs...riding tall in the saddle. Selleck's last big screen western, Quigley Down Under, is the kind of film that will stand the test of time as a truly fun movie and a terrific western.
Rating:
Summary: Quigley is our man!
Review: He was great in this (Tom Sellick). I really truly enjoyed it and you will too" The girl in here her name is Laura San Giacomo she's in that show called Just Shout Me .Anyway this was her big break I think. Simply outstanding. And you know what? This movie doesn't have natsy language and viloence so your grandkids can watch it with you too. Sellick is great - that nitwit Rosie ODonnell needs to have her head examined for giving him a hard time. Maybe when she gets liposuction the cow. WARNING: Make sure you have the right DVD code - they are different from counbtry to country and I have a few (3) that don't work whatsoever. I am Harold McInnes.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Selleck's best ever
Review: Like many TV actors, "Quigley"'s star Tom Selleck gave much attention, during and after his small-screen career, to attempting to break into movies. If he'd been born in 1926, instead of 1946, he would probably have gained fame, not as Thomas Magnum, but in Western films and/or TV series like this one. Quigley is the role he was born to play, and in Quigley's adventures he has made, to my mind, the best movie of his career. This slam-bang actioner, though often labelled a "Western," actually takes place, not in the American West, but in the Crown Colony of Western Australia, probably around 1875 (there are still convicts there). Selleck plays Matthew Quigley, a soft-spoken marksman from Wyoming, who answers an advertisement by Australian rancher Marston (Alan Rickman) for "the finest long-distance marksman in the world." After three months on a sailing ship, he steps ashore at the port of Fremantle, where he promptly gets into a brawl with what turn out to be three of Marston's men, come to meet him, and is mistaken by displaced "native-born Texian" Crazy Cora Cobb (Laura San Giacomo) for her husband Roy. At Marston Water he offers a display of his skill with his primary weapon, a customized Sharps .45 buffalo gun, and impresses everyone, including Marston, who describes himself as "a student of your American West" and is a fast draw, pinpoint-accurate, and quietly proud of it. Only now does Quigley find out that he was being hired, not to kill dingoes (Australian wild dogs) as he thought, but to clear Marston's lands of the native Aboriginies. He promptly throws Marston out the French window of his own house, but is eventually overwhelmed by Marston's crew and, with Cora, taken out to the desert to die. Managing to kill the two men who fetched them there, he recovers his rifle and big Stetson, but loses the buckboard and horses. Trying to walk out, he and Cora are found by a clan of Aboriginies, who take them in, and when a group of Marston's men appears to hunt the natives down, Quigley takes up his Sharps in their defense. Eventually he eliminates Marston and all but three of his men in a sort of one-man "long hunt," climaxed by a shootout in which, though wounded and battered and admitting that he "never had much use" for handguns (he doesn't even carry one), he kills three men so fast that his shots sound like one. Though there's a good deal of violence in this video--in fact, it will probably be too intense for kids under the age of 12 or so--none of it is gratuitous: each instance either serves to further the story in some way or is portrayed as an inevitable result of the choices and character of the person acting or being acted against. Selleck's Quigley is a '90's version of the classic John Wayne hero: soft-spoken, quietly competent, modest and unassuming (he "spent a night" in Dodge City once, and describes it as "a nice place to get some sleep"), chivalrous toward women and even a little unsure of how to react to them. (His early interactions with San Giacomo's Cora, on the Fremantle docks and in their first outback camp, add a whimsical touch to the movie's tone and should draw laughs from all watchers.) He also has an iron code of behavior, and he doesn't hesitate to learn even from the primitive Aborigines: one of the most delightful sequences finds them teaching him to use a spear-thrower and to suck water out of the sand through a bamboo--after which he repays them by conducting a class in the making and proper use of a rawhide lasso. Rickman is the kind of villain you love to hate: smooth, silky, sneering, yet acting from what seem to him to be completely valid reasons. San Giacomo may be "touched in the head," but she's also earthy, practical, and fiercely loyal to Selleck and to the orphaned Aboriginie baby they find; her story of how she came to be in Australia is touchingly delivered. And, like most of the best movies, "Quigley" can serve as a starting point for some penetrating family discussion. Parallels will quickly be seen between the Aborigines' situation and, not only the experiences of the American Indian, but the "ethnic cleansing" through which the former Yugoslavia suffered, and which kids may have studied in school. Quigley seems not to be revengeful against Marston and his crew of 20-odd tough English and Irish until they act against the Aborigines who have been his and Cora's friends, and even then a case can be made for his killing as many of them as he can hit: afoot and outnumbered, he doesn't want them in the area and angry at him; after the second Aboriginie drive and the accidental killing of a storekeeper's wife, he is simply resolved to keep them from doing any more harm. Though action is the movie's keynote, it is above all the story of how three people inspire one another to certain inevitable acts--in short, like all the best stories, it turns on character. And its characters will remain in the memory for a long time to come. (A side-benefit is the blood-stirring score by Basil Poledouris, which was one of the first CD's I ever purchased.) The cinematography gives a powerful sense of the size and loneliness of the Australian outback (filming was done in Alice Springs and other Australian locations), as well as of how important it is that Quigley seems far better able to adjust himself to it than Marston's men are willing to do. Director Simon Wincer, though not of American birth, has turned out a movie which, while not strictly a "real" Western, should become a classic of the genre. By my criteria, it's definitely a 10--or perhaps even a 12.
Rating:
Summary: Quigley is a fun adventure with some weak parts
Review: "Quigley Down Under" is an entertaining movie with some great parts and a great score. The cast is excellent with Tom Selleck as our hero sharpshooter Quigley and Alan Rickman as the villain. The story takes us to Australia when Quigley takes a job from a man involving his sharpshooting. The job isn't great, and Quigley quickly finds himself in a tough spot. The story is a little slow in the middle, but the climax is as exciting as any other. You'll just have to see it yourself...
Rating:
Summary: Not Magnum P.I. by a long shot!
Review: Tom Selleck is perfectly at home as Matthew Quigley. This film helped me fall in love with the idea of Australia as the "Last Great Place", a title that has been conferred on China so often recently. Don't watch this film until you are ready to absorb the perfect American Western story transported down under. Don't watch it until you are ready to relax and enjoy the scenary uninterrupted. Don't watch it alone, you need to share this one. "I never said I wasn't familiar with it... (...)
Rating:
Summary: An unusual sort of Western
Review: Quigley arrives in a strange place for an American cowboy, in a shipyard in Australia. He's there to check out a possible job, to shoot dingoes--or so he thinks. Unfortunatly, he is dropped into a cultural conundrum. He's seen the slaughter of native Americans, and here he is in Australia and his prospective boss wants him to kill native Australians, not dingoes. What does he do? Well, being that he is a "good" cowboy...he's soon on the run. Somewhere along the way, he rescues a semi-lucid woman who seems to be struggling her way out of a personal Hell. Then the movie slows down for awhile as he tries to escape the bad guys and deal with the woman who thinks he's someone else. More adventures ensue, with a final showdown, of course. It is a "thinking" western, that is, the cowboy has seen some very bad things in the past, and he wants to make things better, if only temporarily. It isn't all bang,bang,bang gunfire all the way, there are times for some talk around the fire as well. Some might think it is a slow movie because of that. I'd rather have some slowness and thought than simple brainless constant action and reaction. This is a good movie, don't miss!
Rating:
Summary: Yipee -Ay-Oh-Ki-A..........Mate..........
Review: This review refers to the MGM/UA VHS edition of "Quigley Down Under"..... Austrailian Director Simon Wincer really has a feel for the "Old West". But not the Old West as we're used to seeing in films. This one takes place Down Under in Austrailia, Mate! Matthew Quigley(Tom Selleck), American cowboy, travels three months on a boat to answer an ad for a job. The job description....to help rid the country of Dingos. Matthew's "Sharp's" rifle and expertise at shooting accurately and farther than anyone else lands him the job. Upon his arrival, he immediatley (and not by choice) hooks up with "Crazy Cora"(Laura San Giacomo)saving her from some local roughnecks.(Ma'm You are half a bubble of the Plum") He also learns on his arrival to his employer's(Alan Rickman) vast spread, that it is not Dingo's at all that they're after but the local Aborigines who are treated deplorably by the rancher and the British soldiers as well. And so it begins....Quigley must save the Aborigines people in a land unfamiliar to him, all the while toting "Crazy Cora" with him, battling the ranch hands, the British, and the Dingos as well.There's action,adeventure, romance, drama, comedy, and that great smile of Selleck's, all to the beautiful photography of the land down under.There are some wonderful scenes of Quigley and Cora bonding with the locals, teaching each other their ways. Wincer did an excellent job in the filming of this movie, as it takes you back to the older Westerns when the vistas were as much a part of the story as the characters. Selleck, Rickman, and San Giacomo all very much ARE their characters, and the musical score by Basil Poledouris is delightful. It's light and adventurous, Western and Austrialian in feel at the same time.I also thought the period costumes were wonderful. MGM/UA has put out a nice quality VHS. The picture is clear,colors fabulous, and the sound is very good. It is in Dolby Surround(HI-Fi), and everytime Quigley shoots that Sharp's rifle, YOU KNOW IT! So saddle up with Tom, put another shrimp on the barbie, and settle in for a good Western adventure.......Laurie
Rating:
Summary: Not reviewing the film - reviewing the DVD format instead
Review: I bought the widescreen edition, and I was disappointed that the image didn't fit on my "regular" tv. It is distorted so that the film looks "skinny". Had I known this would happen, I would've looked or a non-widescreen edition. I did not buy this on Amazon. This was my first DVD purchase, at a very low price, so it's just as well that I didn't have to find this out with a more expensive film. Until I get a wide-screen tv, I will stick to the regular screen format.
Rating:
Summary: A western Classic
Review: I think this is by far one of the best Western Classics or our time.... and it's not even located in the US. Location Australia, and quigley is sucked into a chain of events that forces him to use his wit and sharp shooting abilities to help out a woman and her child. If it sounds boring, it's not. It is one of the best acted movies of the time, and best directed as well. There is no way I could rate this movie below a 5 and not feel guilty about it.
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