Virgil Cole (Ed Harris, also starring) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortenson) play a pair of lawmen for hire. Townsfolk that have problems with local outlaws seek out the expertise of guys like Harris and Mortenson to assist in dealing with the problem. The small town of Appaloosa is just such a town, and Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) is such an outlaw. So, the powers that be in the town of Appaloosa hire Cole and Hitch to bring Bragg and his goons to justice, which is a lot easier to do when the town gives all rights to Cole to write his own laws. Now, with Cole and Hitch in power Bragg is finding it a much greater challenge to keep himself out of the hands of the law.
It seems as if the Western genre in the past twenty years has become the Pixar Studios of the various film genres. We typically only get one per year because the genre as a whole is hardly profitable, but because of that it seems that the quality necessary just to get the film made at the script stage increases the chances that what does get made has greater potential to be something special. Even lesser efforts have merit, and it's hard to look back on any Western released since UNFORGIVEN and say that none of them have no redeeming value. APPALOOSA is no different.
In Ed Harris' second directorial effort he takes the western genre waaaaaayyyy back to the days of early Hollywood. The days before Sam Peckinpah made the western such visceral experiences. The days when cowboys talked less with their guns, and more with their mouths.
There is roughly 2 minutes of the entire running time devoted to gunshots, with the majority coming from one shootout. So, if you're hoping for another 3:10 TO YUMA you should really be expecting something more like OPEN RANGE. However, what this film lacks in fireworks it makes up for with a healthy dose of unexpected humor, and sharp character work between Ed Harris and Viggo Mortenson.
This is very much a serious film, and it's made that way which makes the funny moments that much funnier, because they come out of nowhere. In some cases the film is even satiric towards the Western genre which is all the more appealing when you don't walk in expecting to see sarcasm from a film that looks exactly like the kinds of films that contain the genre conventions that it pokes fun at.
As for Mortenson and Harris, they make the best pair of screen personalities in a Western, in terms of partnership, probably since Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in TOMBSTONE. They don't have that same charisma, but they have a rugged charm about them. Mortenson is definitely the most likeable of the two, but Harris' character is more complex, and somewhat mysterious making him more intriguing to watch. We never really know if we're looking at an unconscientious cold-blooded butcher on the brink of an outburst, or a calm sound-minded law enforcer. Your heart will be with Mortenson, but you'll be thinking about Harris.
On that note I take you to the weakest link of the film which is one of the unconventional things that's included, and that's the Allison French character played by Renee Zellweger. I don't recall ever seeing a character like French in the capacity that she's shown in APPALOOSA, and so I don't know if it's my unfamiliarity with such a character in the leading female role that I disliked the way she's presented, or if it's something deeper. The character is simultaneously adorable, and despicable, and that's a difficult dichotomy to work through when you're watching a movie because it's hard to distinguish how you really feel about the character. She isn't one by nature another for show, she's naturally both. She's the kind of woman you're happy to have at a party, but want to avoid being alone with. I guess Ed Harris' character sums it up best when he says, "I've never met anyone like her." I haven't either, and I hope I never do. The character is interesting because it's an original twist to the whole universe, but in this particular sense something more customary may have served better.
Despite that I enjoyed the film immensely. For fans of the classic westerns of the 30s through the mid-60s this film was made with you in mind. For everyone else, as long as you're not expecting a shoot 'em up you might find yourself entertained by the qualities that the film does offer as the distraction of wanting something that it isn't may cause you to miss out on some clever writing, and two strong lead performances from two actors that have time and again proved themselves to be two strong lead performers.
Thanks,
The Beef
