Straight-Shooting Appaloosa a Good Yarn
Ed Harris’ Appaloosa is a good film. At times, it is even a great one, the actor’s directorial follow up to 2000's Pollock an even stronger effort that that Oscar-winning debut. As Westerns go, this doesn’t really do anything to break the mold or go all that far outside the norms of the genre, and while it admittedly follows the generally excepted template start to finish it does it so fantastically well I found it impossible not to come away impressed.
Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in New Line Cinema's Appaloosa
City marshal Virgil Cole (Harris) and his deputy and partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) are traveling lawmen who go from town to town getting hired to deliver unbreakable justice. They have made their reputations on being absolutely intractable where it comes to the law, any township able to meet their asking price going to get iron-clad order of the first degree whether they want it or not.
The small mining community of Appaloosa is more than willing to pay the men for their protection, local rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) and his murderous minions keeping them all living in fear. So it falls to Virgil and Everett to keep the peace and put this outlaw out of business. But when beautiful, if lonely, stranger Allison French (Renée Zellweger, easily delivering her best performance in years) plops off the train all bets are suddenly off, the elder of the two gunfighters so besotted with the young woman his emotions might actually get the better of him.
Quiet, contemplative and with a astonishing climax that spins the film on its head and gives it meaning and nuance I almost didn’t see coming, this is a story of male friendship that’s both stirring and powerful. Harris and Mortensen are men cut from the same cloth, drifters and explorers of the human condition looking for something ephemeral and transparent that only constant movement can find. They speak the same language and hold the same causes dear, both so absolutely assured of the others conviction and honesty disparaging remarks to the contrary aren’t given even a passing consideration.
For those expecting the fireworks and constant pulse-pounding excitement of 3:10 to Yuma this will probably come as a disappointment. Harris’ film is structured more like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance than it is anything else, the internal mechanics of the characters far more interesting then the crackling dissonance of gunfire or the thundering sound of hooves beating against the dusty tundra.
With that in mind, it should be admitted that Appaloosa keeps a pace bordering on the lackadaisical. Harris spends long moments with his camera plaintively staring out into the distance watching the wind whip around the plains or scanning the grizzled features of its beleaguered antiheroes. The director takes his time, the whole picture transpiring to its own unique rhythms completely against the usual dynamics found in such a straight-forward tale of Western justice.
While I appreciate the filmmakers need to intimately get right at the heart of the matter, I just as strongly can’t help but wish he’d have moved things along just a wee bit faster. There were points where I got what Harris was saying long before the scene came to an end, and for as long as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford proved to be it never felt as leisurely or as snail-paced as this.
But as far as complaints go that is the only one I have. This movie builds with grace and power, its final scenes a kinetically heartfelt repudiation of idleness cemented with an emotionally honest burst of selfless friendship the likes of which blew me away. Harris and Mortensen are dazzling, each one playing so well off of the other it’s almost like they are one and the same. The latter, in particular, continues to standout, reuniting with his A History of Violence costar taking the actor's game to an entirely different level arguably rivaling his Oscar-nominated work in last year’s Eastern Promises.
“Print the legend.” That’s the kicker coming out of a certain hombre in John Ford’s aforementioned 1962 classic. It’s is a sentiment some of the figures here ascribe to and believe in. Not for personal glory, but instead for what it can mean to a friendship, especially as said friendship starts coming to its end. Appaloosa knows these feelings, wears them on its spurs and sends them firing out towards the audience like shots from a rifle. Like I said earlier, this is a good movie. Do yourself a favor and go see it.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links
- Appaloosa Theatrical Trailer
