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
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