Director: Ed Harris
Screenplay: Robert Knott, Ed Harris
Starring: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Lance Henriksen
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 114 min
John’s TIFF Review

(4/5)

When I first heard that Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen were making a western together, I was expecting something gritty, something serious, something brutal. Instead, on the contrary, Harris put together a western that is far more along the lines of the light-hearted Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid than the relentlessly unforgiving The Proposition.

Appaloosa is the story of two old friends and lawmen-for-hire, Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Mortensen), who travel to a small town in New Mexico territory where a law-defying rancher looking to take over named Randall Bragg (Irons) does what he wants without consequence – including killing the Marshall and his deputies. Unfortunately, the two friends have their job of taking back the town complicated after the arrival of a mysterious, piano-playing widow named Allison (Zellweger).

As we are first introduced to the likes of Cole and Hitch, we get the standard Eastwoodian or Waynian first impression of two for-hire gunslingers. Cole is the reserved loner. He speaks little, talking with lead rather than words (something amusingly and effectively poked at throughout the film). His partner Hitch is unflinchingly loyal and only talks when he deems it necessary, while unnervingly backing up Cole at every moment. Yet, after that first scene, this is all turned on its head, as the film develops the two characters, taking a fun spin on the standard western stereotypes.

Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which this undoubtedly takes some inspiration from, this is a buddy western. The greatest strength in the film lies in the chemistry between Harris and Mortensen, two of the most talented in Hollywood, who complement each other in the film perfectly. Their companionship is natural and neither steals the show from the other, Harris shining as usual and Viggo giving a wonderful, reserved performance full of subtleties. There is the well-done love story between Cole and Allison in here, but the real focus of the film is the friendship and bond between Cole and Hitch.

What I enjoyed most was how this had that classic western feel throughout, from the story, to the gunfights, to the music, to the old-fashioned and good-looking cinematography – this was Harris’s love letter to the westerns of a bygone era.

The film does suffer from a few problems, including some unanswered questions and a few minor plot holes that I can only assume would have been filled had some of this not ended up on the cutting room floor. The characters are somewhat underdeveloped and their intentions sometimes unclear, such as Zellweger’s deceitful and love-needing widow, who is paper-thin and in this movie more as a plot device than anything else. Then again, that may make sense since the film is not about her at all.

There is also some silly banter and situations that many turn some off, but I thought it felt appropriate to atmosphere of the film, a film which did not try to take itself too serious. If I have one major complaint, it is the voiceover at the beginning and the end. The beginning voiceover by Hitch explains his relationship to Cole and how long they had been together, how they met, and so on. Then we don’t hear the voiceover again until the end of the film, which was just a pointless way to wrap it all up. Even the light-hearted affair this was, I was just left wondering why they chose to put in that awkward voiceover. Without it, the audience would be smart enough to figure out that Hitch and Cole had a long past together and had been doing this together for a long time, all while keeping their origins a mystery. It was just needless.

If you go in expecting a serious, gritty western, I can see where some disappointment would come from, because that it is not. Appaloosa doesn’t do anything new, but it does everything effectively enough that it doesn’t really matter. The acting is superb, the two lead characters are interesting, the shootouts are cool, and what probably matters the most, I was engaged throughout and had a lot of fun watching this. Sometimes its nice to just shut your brain off and go along for the ride.