Appaloosa: A Western With Aragorn In A Sweet Moustache

I remember reading a while back that the western was making a comeback after a string of them got released within a year including 3:10 To Yuma, The Assassination of Jesse James, and this film. Every since the seventies the genre has usually had to wait for Clint Eastwood to direct something in order to get a western and the last notable that everyone compares the new westerns to is Unforgiven. Bearing that in mind I made it a personal goal to avoid comparing it to that movie and also seeing how the movie stands up to the old classic westerns featuring everyone from the Duke (that's John Wayne if you're not savy), Yul Brynner, Lee Van Cleef, and a much younger Clint Eastwood.

Like most westerns do this movie starts with a murder as local cattle man Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) murders a sheriff and his two deputies. The town where Bragg intends to make his fortune is clearly upset and they call in resident gunslinger legend Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and his deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen). The two make an impression right away by killing three of Bragg's men and the men seemed poised to make quick work of him. However, when a traveler named Allison French (Renee Zellweger) comes to town everything gets a little more complicated. Nothing goes quite according to plan and the two men set out to see if they can complete the job they came to do.

Does the movie measure up to the classics? In general yes. For the most part the movie feels like a Spaghetti western minus a couple of shootouts with more of the time being spent on characterization rather than epic storytelling. It's most certainly not in the old American style which is usually one man fighting a whole town until the army shows up or where a sheriff has to stand up to a bunch of armed thugs. Here our gunslingers have already earned their reputations and don't really need to prove themselves to anyone. They also seem to understand that a gigantic firefight might mean the end of them so they tend to go into to fights they know they can win.

Which brings me to the firefights. There's about three total in the entire film (a notable disappointment for me of course) and they're all over and done with. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this because there's a reason each of the shootouts. Everett even takes a moment after one of them to note how fast it was as Virgil states "everyone here could shoot". But my complaint is that on the front of this DVD case there's a review from Peter Travers that says the movie contains "thunderous action". Now everyone is entitled to their opinion and I generally agree with Travers reviews but if the word thunderous is used to describe anything something better explode.

My other notable complaint is Renee Zellweger and her character Miss French. First of all her wardrobe does nothing to flatter her and actually enhances what Family Guy humorously called her "scrunch face". Also, it was very clear from about five minutes after she started speaking that I was not going to like her and that she was not to be trusted which makes Virgil's decision to be with her so questionable because we've seen that he's intelligent. If her personality had been more appealing there's a good chance I would've liked this movie better. And if she had been played by Salma Hayek.

But never fear Miss French can't bring down this well produced project. Jeremy Irons is typically fantastic as the villainous Bragg and gives us shades of that voice you may recognize from Scar in The Lion King or the bad guy in Die Hard With A Vengeance. There's also numerous humorous interplays between Viggo and Ed as they discuss how to deal with women, taunt the bad guys, often including Viggo assisting Ed with his vocab words (a nice running gag). Also, the movie looks very good for not being made for very much and makes use of a number of nice sets and locations.

Finally this movie does something I haven't really seen before. While Unforgiven is all about how a lifetime as a thief and a murder can affect you and about debunking the myths of the Old West, this movie keeps the legendary status of its heroes while demonstrating the tole it takes on them personally. The primary example comes when Virgil blows a gasket and does something rather brash and violent. I won't give up anything more but I have to say it's a moment that stands out because it looks at the man behind the badge. Because that same man that might win every shoot out might be an inch away from self destruction.

So is the western back? We'll see. It's been about a year and I haven't seen another one made though No Country For Old Men has been classified as one by some folks. I hear there's this one starring Megan Fox and Josh Brolin as like a superhero western kind of thing. It was at Comic-Con and the pictures mainly feature Megan Fox in a corset or something like that. Until the Western officially rises again enjoy a new spin on a classic genre and just fast forward with subtitles when Renee opens her mouth.