Yeah!! Great one, Ranger Steve!

Quigley Down Under.

Good movie. Some really great lines!!

Marston (Australian rancher played by Alan Rickman) hires American sharpshooter Quigley (Tom Selleck) to shoot varmints on his property (big ranch or "station"). Quigley asks what kind of varmints. You don't hear Marston's answer, but the next thing you see is Marston crashing through his own front door, bouncing off the porch, and landing butt-upwards in the dirt. He gets up, and enraged, says, "Nobody throws me out of my own house!" and charges back in. A few seconds later, Marston comes crashing though a window and again winds up face down in the dirt.

It seems that the "varmints" Marston wants killed are the hundreds if not thousands of Australian Aborigines in the area, who often appear on "his property." They never seem to do much, they just appear on the hillside above Marston's station (hundreds of them) and they stand there and look. Then they disappear. But it is kinda spooky.

Killing people? Not what Quigley thought he was hiring on for and he takes umbrage at this. Marston takes umbrage that Quigley takes umbrage. He has his bully-boys beat the crap out of Quigley and dump him out in the desert for dead.

Crazy Cora (Laura San Giaccomo—it's hard not to fall in love with Crazy Cora) manages to find him, bruised and bleeding in the desert, and tries to console him by saying,

"Don't worry, on a new job it's quite common for things not to go well at first."

A couple of good conversations:

Crazy Cora:   You know, if we're lost, you can tell me.
Quigley:   We're lost.
Crazy Cora:   I can take bad news. Just tell me straight.
Quigley:   I don't know where the hell we are.
Crazy Cora:   No sense takin' time to make it sound better than it is.
Quigley:   I reckon we're goin' in circles.
Crazy Cora:   Wire things up and I'll see right through. So, just tell me honestly. Are we lost?
Quigley:   Nope. I know exactly where we are.
Crazy Cora:   That's good, 'cause, frankly, I was gettin' a little worried.

And with a British major. He and his troops wander in and out at various times during the movie.

Major Ashley-Pitt:   In our experience, Americans are uncouth misfits who should be run out of their own barbaric country.
Quigley:   Well, Lieutenant...
Major Ashley-Pitt:   Major.
Quigley:   Major. We already run the misfits outta our country. We sent 'em back to England.

Quigley and Crazy Cora find an Aboriginal child, toddler barely more than an infant, wandering in the desert. They're not about to let him die out there, so they take him with them, hoping to find out who he belongs to and return him to his parents. They find a store and get some supplies. Quigley buys Crazy Cora a new dress.

They're riding along and Crazy Cora is carrying the child. Quigley tells Crazy Cora that he's going to go and "get" Marston. Crazy Cora doesn't think that's a good idea.

Crazy Cora:   I don't want you to go.
Quigley:   You sure look pretty in that new blue dress.
Crazy Cora:   If you go after Marston, he'll kill you!
Quigley:   Kid, next time she talks like that, pee all over the dress.

The final confrontation between Quigley and Marston is equally "off the wall," but I won't blow it. It's very satisfying.

All in all, it's one helluva fun movie.

Don Firth