One would think that with a star-studded cast like this, you'd have an incredible movie. Sadly, one would be wrong. In the case of _The Quick and The Dead_ (which, incidentally, is NOT based on the Louis L'Amour western novel of the same title) the whole is **not** greater than the sum of its parts. It's almost like they took too many A-listers and tried in vain to cram them into the same movie and it just doesn't work. There's no story really at all, here: It's a quick-draw tournament (single elimination, of course!) with a bunch of hardcase gunslingers pairing off against each other. Thus, you have endless moments of super-closeup shots of eyes, hats, twitching trigger fingers, hair blowing in the breeze, slow-motion strides through dusty streets...and not much else. Each of these star actors could have been phenomenal in a standalone role, but thrown into a blender together like this…it didn't work. Tobin Bell (later to become instantly recognizable as "Jigsaw") played his part beautifully. Gene Hackman played his part wonderfully (no surprise there, of course). Lance Heinricksen played his part to a hilt. Even Keith David pulled off a great performance. A very young Leonardo di Caprio played his part every bit as wonderfully....Unfortunately, it was all undermined by the horrid performances of one Sharon Stone. Which just goes to show why Tobin Bell, Gene Hackman, Lance Heinricksen, and Keith David went on to become recognizable names in a number of films, including several Oscar-winning performances...and Sharon Stone went on to because a face on a finger as "Captain SlotoStar", reminding mobile-phone players that "Fun is in your hands..." This movie was every bit as predictable, as lame, and as boring as you can imagine a movie to be. No story, no suspense, no build-up, and not much of anything else. I had watched this years ago, and wanted to see it again simply because I remembered it being a Gene Hackman "western", and thought I remembered it being much, much better. Boy was I wrong. This piece of work stunk like that bloated horse carcass I happened to stumble across in a Texas field one hot July afternoon. Do yourself a favor and skip this one. You know what's going to happen; you know WHY it's going to happen, and you know WHEN it's going to happen. If there is any redeeming quality about this piece of fly-infested carp, I missed it. And I have zero intention of ever going back to try and search for it. What a rotten stinker.