frankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank Maloney) (11/11/90)
QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1990 Frank Maloney
QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER has Tom Selleck doing a Western, except in this
case it's Western Australia, supposedly. Actually, it appears from the
credits that most of the movie was shot in Northern Territory. But none
of that is obvious to most Americans, for whom this movie was made.
Now I have to say I like Tom Selleck, he's handsome and easy on the
eye. He can speak his lines in a reasonable sort of a way (unlike, say,
Arnold Schwarzenegger). I've seen all of Tom's movies (pardon the
familiarity of a fan) and he has certainly made some worse ones than
this.
It's action, adventure, revenge, justice for the Aborigines, a
crazy woman, a wonderfully despicable heavy. It's astonishing scenery.
(As Douglas Adams might have said, "Australia is big, mind-bogglingly
big, etc.")
What I like about the film include the villain, the scenery, the
Aborigines, Tom, and (after we know why she's crazy) the woman.
What I don't like is the second-hand big-screen Western movie music
which overplays every scene. There is even this banjo piece which made
me think we had slipped through a wormhole and landed in New Orleans.
The movie could have been a lot more Australian and a lot less of a
transplanted American western.
I saw it for $3.
That seems about right.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney