Awfully Good: Quigley

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Quigley (2003)

Director: William Hillman
Stars: Gary Busey, Curtis Armstrong, Oz Perkins

Is there a plot?

Gary Busey gets reincarnated as an eight pound Pomeranian.

What’s the damage?

We’ve featured Gary Busey before (mainly as serial killer cookie GINGERDEAD MAN), but considering his weird behavior and insane performances clearly stem from a near fatal motorcycle accident, I try not to take too many cheap shots at the guy. But QUIGLEY cannot be ignored.

Just another Wednesday at the Busey Household.

I mean, how can you ignore a movie that opens with Oscar-nominee Busey slipping in canine excrement and ordering his sidekick to “execute anyone who owns a dog?” But that’s Archie Channing, the movie’s protagonist, an evil CEO of a successful software company who treats his employees like garbage and has some weird personal vendetta against anything with four legs and a tail. So it’s with heavy irony that Channing dies in a car accident caused by a dog at the beginning of the movie and goes to heaven, which is clearly a barely-decorated Sears Portrait Studio. Even Busey, who legally died during his accident, was displeased at the set, proclaiming, “I’ve been to heaven and this looks nothing like it!”

This is what Heaven’s really like? Excuse me while I go bear false witness and covet some ladies.

Since God has a wicked and vengeful sense of humor, he sends the man back to Earth as a fluffy white dog named Quigley. (That’s one of the many reasons QUIGLEY is so great—out of all the dogs Gary Busey could be, they pick Pomeranian.) While everyone on Earth sees him in canine form, Archie does have a creepy guardian angel who can still view him as a human, which means you occasionally get to see Busey himself doing dog-like things. It’s as great as it sounds, especially since the legendarily nutty actor commits to the role 110%—growling and barking at people, walking on a leash and getting trapped in a cage by a dogcatcher. He also goes back to rescue his company only to get chased by inept security guards (including “Coach” star Bill Fagerblake) and an evil German janitor, who actually says the line, “Doggy, where are your papers?!”

“They’ve got bush!”

After Puppy Busey learns a lesson about kindness and rescues his company (with the help of 80s movie staple Curtis Armstrong, who’s clearly embarrassed to be there), he is sent to repair his relationship with his brother and his very Christian family. First, he defies physics to save the daughter from getting hit by a car. Then when the same idiot child wanders off and gets lost in the woods behind her house, Quigley once again steps up and uses his magnificent nose to track her down. What makes this sequence truly special is the horrible inspirational song they use, honestly giving Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” a run for its money as most embarrassing musical moment in a movie.

Only the best janitorial engineers use ULTIMATE PIMP cleaning products.

Once Quigley has helped the children curb their natural inclinations toward suicide, he sets out to save his brother from financial ruin. This is what happens: Gary Busey, as a dog, plays the video game his bro has been working on, deems it the best game ever created in the world, picks it up in his teeth and carries it all the way back to his company in the city. He plays it for Booger from REVENGE OF THE NERDS, who immediately offers the brother a lucrative job. By this time the whole family has fallen in love with Quigley, which means it’s time for their beloved dog to return to heaven and leave them forever. This prompts the young son to cry and say, “Now we’ve lost two doggies!” (Their previous one had just died before Gary Busey showed up.)

“I is more professional than Busey…can has treat?”

I should also mention that QUIGLEY takes place in an alternate 2003 universe where people still say “CD-ROMS,” listen to tape cassettes and play cutting edge video games featuring characters that don’t move. I’m guessing the movie was not written by somebody who’s ever used a computer before. I base that on the fact that the MacGuffin is something called a “virtual reality CD-ROM” and is constantly referred to as such.

This is the actual final shot of the movie. I have not doctored it in any way.

If you still have any doubt as to whether or not QUIGLEY is worth your time, I invite you to CLICK HERE and look at the film’s official site and see some of the hilariously bad posters they made. I’ve included a sample below, where Busey for some reason takes second visual billing to some guy who’s in the movie for maybe two minutes. Enjoy!

“Watch out, it’s got a CD-ROM!”

“Best” Line

Gary Busey barks, pees on things and makes a goofy heartfelt speech. He also says, “I’d have a better time cleaning a short person’s teeth,” which makes zero sense.

“Best” Parts

1) Enjoy Gary Busey’s best moments acting like a dog.

2) This montage, where Quigley must rescue a stupid girl lost in the woods, might be the worst use of music in a film since Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap.”

3) BONUS: You MUST watch this incredible incoherent interview Busey did for the movie. “And cancer in me face!”