The sad thing about Quigley Down Under is that had this been done thirty years earlier the film would have warranted a major release the way a John Wayne or a James Stewart western would have had. Personally when I look at Tom Selleck and the way he plays the title character, I think James Garner. Selleck plays Matthew Quigley in the same dry, laconic manner that Garner patented.
This western is about as southwest as you can get without dealing with penguins and icebergs. Selleck has come to western Australia in answer to an advertisement by a local rancher requiring a skilled marksman with a rifle. He takes the three month voyage from San Francisco and arrives at Alan Rickman's local Ponderosa.
Remember this is Australia, a place settled by convict labor. On Rickman's spread it's mostly Scotch and Irish. But Rickman's problem isn't with them, it's with the aborigines.
Which brings us to why he wants Selleck's services with a long rifle. Essentially he wants Selleck to hunt them down and kill them at a distance, a bit of ethnic cleansing.
Fighting Indians was up close and personal at times. But just shooting people down like game, rubs Selleck the wrong way. He tells Rickman no with vigor. And that vigorous no gets Selleck and Laura San Giacomo a woman not playing with a full deck beaten up and thrown out in the outback with no means of survival.
Of course they survive and we learn a lot about San Giacomo. The reason for her insanity, it's more of a defense mechanism to keep out the world, because she's done something terrible that her conscience won't leave alone. It's a beautiful performance, probably the acting highlight of Quigley Down Under.
Of course there's plenty of action to satisfy any western fan on any continent. Alan Rickman is an especially loathsome villain, he makes his Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood film look like a Girl Scout.
And the aborigines do learn to appreciate Selleck and the payback he exacts. They come through for him at critical times in the film.
Tom Selleck is a perfectly cast western hero, the kind I used to spend Saturday afternoon's watching.
