Magnum is hired from America by an Australian rancher so he can shoot aborigines at a distance. He takes exception to this, so the rancher tries to kill him for refusing, and Quigley escapes into the bush with a woman who calls him Roy and are helped by aborigines. Quigley returns the help, before heading back to the ranch.....From the sound of the title, you would think that the makers of this movie were hoping for some sort of franchise opener, and although the film does have the odd flash of genius, it's just overlong, and very dull in places.Selleck is as good as he ever is, and one thinks that this should have been his Indiana Jones, Quigley does have all the traits, but a few more quips from the titular character wouldn't have hurt the movie.Rickman steals the film from everybody though, made between Die Hard and Robin Hood: POT, this just goes to show what an impressive screen presence he is.Australia is wonderful to look at though, but as already stated, it's just a tad too long

Great mostly due to the incredible scenery, Tom Selleck stands up with veteran films actors like Alan Rickman and Laura San Giacomo and holds his own. His Magnum PI Style mixed with a small amount of "Robert Mitchum competence" gives him a bit of flair, and contrast to the Australian actors.The feel of this film is that of a big-time Hollywood western, this is about as far west as one can get. Along with the familiar horses and guns, there are also dingos and kangaroos. Instead of Native Americans, there are Native Australians, and there is as much of a parallel here as there is with the western United States. Alan Rickman is the quintessential bloated bad-guy.The score by Basil Poledouris is very "Magnificent Sevenish" - You can hear strains of Quigly is Basil's other work, like Starship Troopers- Actually, a LOT of Quigly's themes were reproduced in Starship Troopers, but this is why I liked Composers like Alfred Hitchcocks Bernard Herrman and Sergio Leone's Ennio Merricone.The director of Lonesome Dove Simon Wincer sells the story, written by novelist John Hill...And all of Australia is the set.Favourite quote from the film is "Got no use for a Colt, never said I couldn't use one". One very pleasant moment in the film is where Quigley makes a very Clint-Eastwoodish/Josey Wales gesture by spitting on the ground- Watch for that.

You ever heard of a Western in the East?. Quigley Down Under takes us to a corner of the world that is about as far as you can get from where Westerns are traditionally set. When the opening credits kick off, we are in Colorado. When they end, we are on the coast of Western Australia. The one taking the journey is Mathew Quigley, a renowned sharp shooter who has been hired by cattle rancher Elliot Marsten to help take care of a dingo problem. On the evening of his arrival at the Marstn ranch, Quigley finds out that he was hired in a lie. It is not dingos that Marsten wants dead, his real intentions have to do with his grudge against the local aboriginals. Embarrassed and infuriated, Quiqly declines the offer quite blatantly, (and by blatantly I mean with physical means) Marsten orders his goons to dump Quigly in the middle of the desert and let the heat kill him. With the help of the Aboriginals, he survives and he teams up with them to fight Marsten. Also on Quigley's side, is a bizarre little woman called Cora who has followed him all the way from the docks thinking that Quigley is her long lost love (she addresses him as Roy)Quigley Down Under manages to be a stable entertainment, but it is not without problem. The plot is schematic and uninventive, and some parts are not properly thought out. Cora in particular, is a clumsy creation. Her character motivation is so poorly presented that when I first saw the movie, I didn't know whether I was supposed to think she was crazy or selfish, or just dumb. The truth about Cora is revealed a little too late in the story. As a villain, Marston is close to cardboard, and there is no great sense of menace to him, but Alan Rickman as an actor is smart enough to do him a little justice. As for Quigley, he's just a cowboy and Tom Selleck is just a cowboy actor, so there is no major problem there.I wouldn't say that this is a memorable film, but it is not every day that you see a western in Australia, and it does make a difference. Just because the story is six thousand miles from America, doesn't mean the film isn't worth watching if Western is your kind of genre. It offers everything one would expect from a western, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

The low scoring of this movie at IMDb only reminds us: It wasn't the traditional Western that exhausted itself in the later 1960s/ early 1970s, it was the audience.This is an old-school traditional Western that happens to be set in Australia. The story, cinematography, music, pacing, characterizations, dialog, all are reminiscent of those we came to expect from Hawks, Hathaway, Sturgis. Yet there is no attempt to slavishly imitate the work of such past masters of the genre, but to add to the genre using a cinema vocabulary they would easily have recognized and appreciated.It's quite alright to say, 'traditional Westerns are not my cup or tea,' but it is not appropriate to slam a genre film for being true to its genre. And this sweeping adventure story is so true to its genre, if one didn't know when this was made or who these actors were, one could easily think it a product of the late 1950s or early 1960s, the last golden age of the traditional Western, the era of Rio Bravo, the Magnificent Seven, The Sons of Katie Elder, The River of No Return. While not strictly realistic, it presents a world that is three dimensionally realized - The heat is real, the wind is real, the old houses look like they've been standing for years, the people inhabiting this world are flesh and blood.One can easily imagine John Wayne speaking Tom Selleck's lines, but Selleck does an admirable job speaking them, and finds his own voice doing so. The rest of the cast is excellent as well. Since this is a traditional Western, some of the actors are stuck playing stereotypes, but as did their '50s-'60s counterparts, they work hard to bring these alive, to add the quirks that give them individuality, enough so to move the story along in fine dramatic fashion.And I think it a fine genre story, filled with wonder, suspense, thrills, drama, romance, humor. Pretty much the 'complete package' we came to expect Westerns to deliver back in their last golden age.We often say, "they don't make them like they used to." Well, here! They did it! They made one like they used to! Instead of complaining we should celebrate.