Review: Appaloosa

Appaloosa

OPENING: 10/03/2008

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
Feelings get you killed.

Opening Statement
Every time a new western comes around, there is much discussion about the fact that there aren’t many new westerns these days. That’s kind of a sad thing, but there is one benefit: when someone actually does take the time to make a western, they usually care enough about the film to make it count. We may not have a great quantity of westerns from the past couple of decades, but there’s a pretty high ratio of quality. I’m pleased to report that actor/director Ed Harris has now given us yet another winner, the very appealing Appaloosa.

Facts of the Case
Harris and Viggo Mortensen play two hired gunmen who have made a living out of cleaning up dirty towns. The town of Appaloosa looks like the exact same sort of thing they’ve dealt with time and time again in the past. It’s being controlled by a violent rancher (played by Jeremy Irons), and the local government officials are keen to regain power. They hire Harris to take over as the new City Marshall, with Mortensen serving as deputy. It’s the classic western set-up: a couple of good guys need to take on the villain and his giant posse. Of course, there’s a woman (Renee Zellweger) thrown into the mix, because what is a western without a little romance?

The Evidence
This has led many critics to refer to Appaloosa as a very traditional old-fashioned western. It may seem so on the surface, but it is actually a whole lot more. Harris is a very smart man, and it shows here. He preserves the look and feel of vintage Hollywood westerns, and creates a movie that seems nostalgic in many ways. But take a closer look at the movie. At every single turn, Harris is quietly undermining stereotypes, altering our perceptions of seemingly familiar characters, and creating a surprisingly original story. At no point in this film was I able to confidently predict what might happen next. I can’t remember the last western I saw where I felt like that.

Let us consider the character played by Renee Zellweger. She is not a prostitute, and she is not a school teacher (the only two professions most female characters in westerns are permitted to have). She is a musician, playing the piano and organ in churches and saloons for a living. That is just the first surprise. There is a second, and then a third, and perhaps a fourth, depending on how trusting you are a person. Then consider the plot surrounding Jeremy Irons. Irons commits a cold-blooded murder at the beginning of the film, and all of his men witness this. One of the men decides that he would like to testify against his boss, and comes to Harris and Mortensen with his story. As he does this within the film’s half-hour, we think we know what is going to happen to this poor sap. We are wrong. The sort of thing that never happens in a film like this actually happens, and I was delighted. I was genuinely surprised, and I was happy to finally be viewing a film that I could not stay a step ahead of. That is not a compliment I am paying myself, but rather a criticism of the formulaic nature of most modern films (particularly genre efforts).

My praise does not stop there. A surprising plot is only one of the film’s attributes. The film is simply gorgeous on a technical level, capturing a beautiful slice of the American west that is both realistic and romanticized. Harris knows his stuff behind the camera. Even though this film bears little relation Pollock, his previous film, his skills as a director are just as evident. He handles the action scenes very well, and these are yet another area in which the film surprised me. Most movie shootouts involving a lot of people seem to last forever. This film has a great big shootout that lasts a grand total of ten seconds. “That was fast,” Mortensen marvels. “Everyone knew how to shoot,” Harris observes. Of course they did. We just didn’t expect them to, since this is a movie, and movies tend to require a lot of wasted bullets.

Of all the many qualities here, perhaps none of them would matter without the success of the core relationship at the center of the film. Harris and Mortensen create two memorable and unique characters that moved me a great deal. Harris is a man’s man, the kind of no-nonsense fellow that would be played by John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in their prime. However, there is so much more to this guy. His feelings are easily wounded, and he does not recover quickly from insults (particularly those delivered by friends). He feels slightly inadequate, and is constantly working towards trying to expand his vocabulary, perhaps in search of some words elegant enough to express the feelings of his soul. Harris has scenes here that in the film’s second half that can genuinely be called “beautiful”, but I dare not describe them beyond that for fear of spoiling things. His excellent performance is complimented nicely by Mortensen, who plays a character that is a little kinder, a little more level-headed, and a little more emotionally stable. Harris is the noble leader of the duo, but Mortensen is the wiser of the two. However, they are both good men, honest men, and sincere men. It can be difficult to make goodness compelling, but both succeed with flying colors here. Meanwhile, Zellweger seems right at home in this material, and Irons plays a villain as effectively as you would expect an actor of his caliber to. There’s also a fine small turn from Timothy Spall, who is as good as anyone at wringing his hands and fidgeting worriedly.

Closing Statement
Go see Appaloosa. This film keeps everything that I love about traditional westerns, and it gently improves upon everything else with wisdom and subtlety. It is also a film that has a profound level of compassion for and understanding of its characters. Ed Harris has made one of the year’s best films, and has done so with such modesty that many may not recognize just how good it is. Appaloosa is a film to be treasured.

The Verdict

10/10

• “”>