Appaloosa (Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons) – Ed Harris is one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors. He is four-time Oscar-nominated. He has played character-driven roles in Pollock, The Hours, and The Truman Show, all of which garnered Oscar nods. He has played guy-next-door roles like Milk Money. He was brilliant in Apollo 13 as the flight director; haunting and tough in The Truman Show and A Beautiful Mind (the latter two for Ron Howard), and compelling in the first major role I remember, as John Glenn in The Right Stuff and in The Hours.
Appaloosa was written, directed, produced and fronted by Harris. This is a classic Western at a time when the genre is long past its time. Harris puts much on the line to bring this to theaters, and he acquits himself very well. Appaloosa is not as good as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven but it’s better than Kevin Costner’s very good Open Range. What is it about actors that compel them to be cowboys? I’ll bet they enjoyed playing cowboys as kids, perhaps their first acting experience.
This is a fine and understated film with Harris as marshal Virgil Cole and Viggo Mortensen as his deputy, Everett Hitch. They are hired by the business leaders of the town of Appaloosa to be the lawmen and bring to justice the rogue “bad guys” led by Randall Bragg, played by classic British actor Jeremy Irons. Both believe in control and the showdown is inevitable. How it unveils is a bit slow and surprising. It is the acting that carries the film. The guys give the movie character and depth. The woman who entrances Cole and almost every man attractable is Allison French, played in a mystifyingly ambivalent way by Renee Zellweger. She is more distracting than illuminating here, providing some sexual tension with all of the male leads.
I assume young people will not be attracted at all to this film. It is aimed at an older audience longing for a good, character-driven Western with outstanding acting.