A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Sam Raimi's unusual career took on another new facet in 1995 when he directed the spaghetti western-style The Quick and the Dead, a mildly entertaining movie about a female gunslinger riding back into town intent on wreaking revenge.  It's got a good cast, led by Sharon Stone but also with Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe (before they were famous), but sadly never amounts to what it perhaps could have been.  Raimi can rip off Leone's style all day long, but it takes more than that to produce a comparable film.  Still, it's entertaining enough.

Speaking of things not being what they perhaps could have been, the same could be said of Alan Silvestri's music.  His style would seem to lend itself naturally to the western, and he has dabbled in the genre on a few occasions, here being asked to ape the legendary Morricone scores to an extent but of course giving the music a personality and style of its own.  It starts with a bang, in the highly-promising "Redemption", complete with Morricone-style trumpet solos, whistling, guitars, cracked whips - terrific stuff, but sadly the rest of the score doesn't really match up.  "Gunfight Montage" is a good action piece, but there is a surprising lack of flair in what follows.  "Ellen vs Dred" and "Kid vs Herod" are reasonable action tracks, including a theme which sounds oddly similar to John Williams's from Dracula of all things, but there is a general lack of direction which means they are never fully satisfying.  The final half of the latter is probably the best bit of the underscore, with the most Morricone-like passage of trumpet and guitar clearly playing off the legendary finale music from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

"I Don't Wanna Die" is one of a handful of more romantic pieces and it's quite lovely, a simple guitar solo which is rather affecting.  Things then perk up again in the fantastic end credit piece, easily the best thing on the album and so good that it makes it all the more frustrating that much of what has gone before is simply rather dull.  Surprisingly, the composer did this sort of thing considerably better for Gore Verbinski's lightweight comedy The Mexican a few years later, and that would certainly be recommended before this one, but there is still enough here in the opening and closing tracks to make it a worthwhile purchase, especially if you love Silvestri.

Tracks

1. Redemption (3:25)
2. Gunfight Montage (1:41)
3. Couldn't Tell Us Apart (1:17)
4. John Herod (1:22)
5. Ellen's First Round (1:10)
6. Lady's the Winner (:47)
7. Dinner Tonight (2:11)
8. Coke's Story (1:02)
9. Ellen vs Dred (1:10)
10. Kid vs Herod (4:17)
11. I Don't Wanna Die (2:00)
12. The Big Day (2:27)
13. Ellen Returns (3:54)
14. The Law's Come Back to Town (:49)
15. The Quick and the Dead (3:30)