Have you ever heard of Quigley Down Under? | Just Films & That
Just Films & That is a podcast that celebrates underrated and underseen films. For this episode, one of our guests - comedian and podcaster Jamie Allerton - chose Quigley Down Under. Jamie reckons this one is both underseen and underrated. So, is this Australian cowboy romp a hidden gem? You can listen to all episodes of Just Films and That now, wherever you get your podcasts
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00:00 All Matthew Quigley did was answer a help wanted ad.
00:07 But a few surprises were waiting for Quigley Down Under.
00:13 Quigley Down Under then is a film from 1990 that was chosen earlier this year by one of our guests,
00:17 a brilliant comedian and podcaster called Jamie Allerton.
00:20 And Jamie picked this because he thinks it's underrated and underseen.
00:24 In terms of the plot, if you don't know already, Quigley Down Under centres on the main character,
00:27 Matthew Quigley, played by Tom Selleck. He's an American sharpshooter who travels to the Australian outback
00:32 to answer a help wanted ad. But when he gets there and meets the villain, played by Alan Rickman,
00:36 all is not what it seems, leading him on a quest for revenge.
00:39 Now, Alice, you've got the scores, so let's hear them.
00:42 So over on IMDb, this film gets a 6.9. And then on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience give it 74%.
00:49 But the critics give it 55%. So you can sort of see why Jamie might have thought this could be underrated.
00:56 In terms of underseen, well, the figures that we can find in the box office,
01:00 which are quite variable depending on where you look, but they suggest that the budget was between
01:04 $15 and $20 million and that it roughly made that back. And it is not deemed as a financial success.
01:11 I had no idea what to expect going into this film. I'd never seen it and never heard of it,
01:16 but I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I was going to.
01:19 I think the characters are really intriguing and compelling.
01:22 I think some elements of the script are really strong and you just feel so engaged with the story.
01:28 And I think the look of it is really quite striking as well. Things feel really dirty and rough and difficult.
01:34 There are quite often scenes where our main characters are sunburned and it looks so raw and painful.
01:39 And you just really feel the atmosphere and the environment that our characters find themselves in.
01:44 Nope. I know exactly where we are. We're lost.
01:48 Overall, yeah, I thought there was lots to like about it. It has big Sunday afternoon Channel 5 film vibes to it, I think.
01:54 Like you say, there's some good performances in there. There's two performances that are really on the opposite end of the spectrum.
01:59 We've got Tom Selleck, very cool, very withdrawn, very reserved, heroic cowboy type.
02:05 And they've got Alan Rickman, who's just absolutely loving it.
02:08 Chew in the scenery, being the sadistic bad guy that he obviously loved to play.
02:13 There's some good tension building, there's some good action and stuff like that.
02:17 The only thing I can pinpoint that I didn't really like about this film was the title.
02:21 I think it's quite misleading. It feels almost like it could be a kid's film and that Quigley is this big cartoony type character.
02:28 Or that it might be part of a series. And oh no, have I missed Quigley Goes to New York?
02:33 So I don't think the title did it justice. And I think if you were perhaps scrolling through film titles looking for something to watch,
02:38 you just wouldn't watch this based on that. And I think that does the film a real disservice,
02:43 which I do think adds to the argument that this could be underseen.
02:46 I'd agree with the title thing. It very much sounds like we're going to get Quigley Mission to Moscow.
02:50 There's a couple of pretty bad Irish accents at the start, but I think we're used to seeing that in films, aren't we?
02:55 But overall I enjoyed it and I'd agree with Jamie. I think it's underseen and underrated. What about you?
03:00 I agree. I do think that Quigley Down Under is both underseen and underrated.