- Year: 1990
- Genre: action, adventure, drama, romance, western
- Director: Simon Wincer
- Cast: Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo, Alan Rickman
- Plot: Sharpshooter Matt Quigley is hired from Wyoming by an Australian rancher paying a very high price. But when Quigley arrives Down Under, all is not as it seems.
Plot
Matthew Quigley is an American cowboy with a specially modified rifle with which he can shoot accurately at extraordinary distances. Seeing a newspaper advertisement that asks for a man with his special talent, he answers using just four words: “M. Quigley 900 yards”, written on a copy of the advertisement that is punctured by six closely spaced bullet holes.
When he arrives in Australia, he gets into a fight with employees of the man who hired him as they try to force “Crazy Cora” onto their wagon. After he identifies himself, he is taken to the station of Elliot Marston, who informs Quigley his sharpshooting skills will be used to eradicate the increasingly elusive Aboriginal Australians. Quigley turns down the offer and throws Marston out of his own house. When the Aboriginal manservant knocks Quigley over the head, Marston’s men beat him and Cora unconscious and dump them in the Outback with no water and little chance of survival. However, they are rescued by Aboriginal Australians.
Cora now reveals that she comes from Texas. When her home was attacked by Comanches, she hid in the root cellar and accidentally suffocated her child while trying to prevent him from crying. Her husband had then put her alone on a ship to Australia. Now Cora consistently calls Quigley by her husband’s name (Roy), much to his annoyance.
When Marston’s men attack the Aboriginal Australians who helped them, Quigley kills three. Escaping on a horse, they encounter more of the men driving Aboriginal Australians over a cliff. Quigley drives them off with his deadly shooting and Cora rescues an orphaned baby she finds among the dead. Leaving Cora and the infant in the desert with food and water, Quigley rides alone to a nearby town. There he obtains new ammunition from a local German gunsmith, who hates Marston for his murdering ways. Quigley learns as well that he has become a legendary hero among the Aboriginal Australians.
Marston’s men are also in town and recognize Quigley’s saddle. When they attack, cornering him in a burning building, he escapes through a skylight and kills all but one of them. The injured survivor is sent back to say Quigley will be following. Quigley returns to Cora and the baby, which she has just saved from an attack by dingoes. She had tried to stop that child from crying too but finally let him make as much noise as he liked as she killed the animals using a revolver that Quigley had left for her. Back in town, Cora gives the baby to Aboriginal Australians trading there after Quigley tells her that she (Cora) has a right to happiness.
Next morning, Quigley rides away to confront Marston at his station. At first he shoots the defenders from his location in the hills but is eventually shot in the leg and captured by Marston’s last two men. Marston, who has noticed that Quigley only ever carries a rifle, decides to give him a lesson in the “quick-draw” style of gun fighting. Marston and his men are beaten to the draw by Quigley; as Marston lies dying, Quigley refers to an earlier conversation, telling him, “I said I never had much use for one [a revolver]; never said I didn’t know how to use it”.
Marston’s servant comes out of the house and gives Quigley his rifle back. The servant then walks away from the ranch, stripping off his western-style clothing as he goes. A British cavalry troop now arrives to arrest Quigley, until they notice the surrounding hills are lined with Aboriginal Australians and decide to withdraw. Later Quigley and Cora book a passage back to America in the name of Cora’s husband, since Quigley is wanted. On the wharf, she reminds him that he once told her that she had to say two words before he could make love to her. Smiling broadly, she calls him “Matthew Quigley” and the two embrace.
