[MOVIE] Appaloosa Reviews

[Emperor]

There is a serious lack of movies out at the moment in my opinion and this one has been on my radar for a few months.  Here is what is being said about it if interested.

 

Rolling Stones gives it 3 and half out of 4 stars

 

Ed Harris rides tall in the saddle as director, co-writer, co-producer and star of this terrific Western, a potently acted powerhouse that sticks in the mind and the heart. The source material is a 2005 book by Robert B. Parker, best known for his Spenser crime novels. Harris is best known for being a reliably superb actor (four Oscar nominations) and for scoring an acclaimed 2000 debut as a director with Pollock, in which he played the abstract painter Jackson Pollock. There is nothing abstract about Harris' approach to Appaloosa. Every frame of the movie indicates his bone-deep respect for classic film Westerns, notably 1946's My Darling Clementine, in which director John Ford took a low-key, almost lyrical approach to the gunfight at the OK Corral. Though Appaloosa is shot through with thunderous action and nail-biting suspense, the movie finds its soul in its main characters, in the friendship between Harris' marshal, Virgil Cole, and Viggo Mortensen's deputy, Everett Hitch. The two men have a history, and you can feel it in their every sly move and telling gesture, in their easy banter, in their hard-won mutual respect. Having signed up to bring rough justice to Appaloosa, an 1880s town in the control of despotic rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), Virgil and Everett do everything that's expected, except show off or show fear. "Feelings get you killed," says Virgil.

 

Harris and Mortensen, who co-starred in 2005's A History of Violence, do some of the tangiest acting of their respective careers, and they make a knockout team. Everett, who carries an enormous double-barreled 8-gauge shotgun, shows a quiet erudition in his conversations with Virgil. Nothing comes between their unspoken loyalty — that is, until the arrival of Allison French (Renée Zellweger), a widow with a knack for playing piano that almost equals her knack for playing men. Virgil isn't blind to Allison's treachery, but he's in love, and Everett sees it. So does Bragg, who knows that his wealth and power will trump love for centuries to come.

 

Harris deals with the story's modern parallels, with the fine distinction between enforcing the law and just killing people. "Are you afraid to die?" Virgil asks one varmint, who proudly claims that nothing scares him. "Good," says Virgil, pulling his gun, " 'cause you go first." Great line. Harris knows that the moral issues at stake here are timeless. His Western isn't revisionist like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven or deconstructionist like last year's 3:10 to Yuma. His film resonates with themes of personal honor that don't age. Appaloosa is gripping entertainment that keeps springing surprises. But Harris triumphs by making the final showdown a battle between a man and his conscience.

 

From Movie Blog:  Bad Review 4 out of 10

 

The General Idea

 

Synopsis From IMDB: When Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch arrive in Appaloosa, they find a town suffering at the hands of a rancher named Randall Bragg that means to own everything in it, and who has already left the city Marshall and one of his deputies dead. Cole and Hitch are used to cleaning up after scavengers, but this one raises the stakes by playing not by the rules, but with emotion. Cole and Hitch are hired to save the town from Bragg, but a young attractive widow arrives to complicate matters.

 

 

The Good

 

Ed Harris (Virgil Cole), Vitgo Morgensen (Everett Hitch) and Jeremy Irons (Randall Bragg) all had characters that were quality. Bragg is a well educated lawless man, Everett is a gunman who doesn’t care much for law, but simply uses his status as deputy as a legal means to ply his trade. (Virgil Cole is a man who brings his own commandments with him and imposes the cleansing wrath of law and order from one town to the next.

 

Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have a very good Master/Apprenticeship relationship that is touched on some, but never enough. The scenes where these two men were talking alone were some of the best moments of this film. I think it would have been wise for them to wallow in this relationship more than they did.

There was a courtroom scene that was probably my favorite in the film. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the judge delivers a great line that involves the phrase “while the bees are in the butter”. I love me a catchy adage.

 

The Bad

 

The score for this film was horrible. It was like an easy listening jazz/country hybrid that was very out of place and extremely off-putting.

 

I am not opposed to spouses and lovers being in westerns. But when the film continually spends time dealing with relationship problems and the hero’s desire to work them out - all of a sudden we have something that feels like a bad soap opera. I will admit, the first time Virgil Cole bitches about getting hell for not being home enough - I thought it was funny; I also thought that it would be the last scene of its kind.

 

Allison French (Renée Zellweger) and her troubled relationships became far too central to the story and as a result everything cool about this western was watered down. That may have been the point of the story - but it sucked.

 

This film skips along without building tension. Problems seem to be solved a scene or three after the problem is introduced (for the good guys and the bad) and we never get a chance to feel the tension or heaviness of the situation. A showdown should have you at the edge of your seat; this didn’t happened in Appaloosa, because the set up never simmered.

 

Overall

 

This was a very disappointing Western. Sadly, if the same characters were in a different film, I think we could’ve had something that was enjoyable. Out of 10, I would give Appaloosa an 4.

 

Hollywood Reporter:

 

TORONTO — The Western may not be making a galloping comeback any time soon, but it won't be Ed Harris' fault.

 

If actor-director doesn't point the way to a modern approach to the genre in "Appaloosa," he has nonetheless made a fine dramatic comedy with fresh characters, witty dialogue and a keen interest in how relationships must have developed among frontier folks, tyrannical ranchers, no-nonsense lawmen and -- oh, yes -- the complicated women on that frontier. If Warner Bros. isn't careful, the studio, which inherited "Appaloosa" in the corporate dismantling of New Line, may have a hit on its hand. It will take marketing though since, after all, it is a Western.

 

The initial scenes feel familiar. Bragg (Jeremy Iron), a merciless rancher, guns down a sheriff and two deputies, plunging a small New Mexico town, circa 1882, into lawlessness. Town leaders (British actor Timothy Sprall among them giving yet another inimitable performance) beseech lawmen-for-hire, the tight-to-the-vest Virgil (Harris) and his longtime and most knowing partner Everett (Viggo Mortensen) to clean up their town. Virgil whips out a contract — here things start to diverge from the familiar — that gives him complete control of the town.

The arrival of a seemingly helpless widow, Allison French (Renée Zellweger), marks another departure from genre dictates. She has plenty of talents such as piano playing and cooking and she's no whore, yet let's just say she is not your usual Western heroine.

 

"How long have you been killing people for a living?" she innocently asks the new sheriff. The movie, adapted from a novel by Robert B. Parker (creator of "Spencer for Hire") by Harris and Robert Knott, is chockablock with dialogue that startles and amuses. Characters inadvertently reveal themselves through words. Emotions hide out in their words. Their wit is gun-powder dry and even Virgil works hard to improve his vocabulary although it's Everett who usually supplies the word he searches for.

 

The focal point here is the relationship between the two lawmen. This is no "Brokeback Mountain," mind you, but Virgil has been "husband" to Everett much longer than he has to Allison. "We're both with Virgil, not with each other," remarks Everett when Allison makes an ill-advised pass at him.

This is how men must rely on each other in the West, how they get a job done and survive. Virgil allows no place in his heart for emotions when it comes to that job. This, he notes sagely, is Everett's weakness: He can be ruled by emotion. You may never see that but his partner does.

 

One of the glories of "Appaloosa" is that you can't be certain where things are headed. And most surprises spring from character. The film really comes down to how the Western maverick gets tamed, how a Virgil settles down with an Allison, who is no blushing rose yet someone he develops feelings for that overwhelm his usual logic and focus.

It's difficult to say where the film's genius lies — in the sophisticated writing, the astute direction of veteran actors, in the cut-for-story editing (by Kathryn Himoff) or the restrained though sharp-eyed cinematography (by Dean Semler of "Dances With Wolves"). Since this is Harris' baby, much credit goes to him for letting the project take shape in an unhurried manner that allows nuance and humor to guide the story to safe harbor.

[Kara_J]

I must admit I'm looking forward to seeing this film :)

[Emperor]

Moriarty Review of the film.  He watched three over the weekend and this was his third review. 

 

The final film I’m reviewing this weekend is APPALOOSA, the new film directed by veteran character actor Ed Harris. I haven’t read the Robert Parker novel that this was based on, but I’m pleased to report that this is a simple pleasure, unadorned and lovely, a real no-shit Western. It’s not a post-modern take on the genre. It’s not a reinvention. They’re not being ironic about it. It’s unapologetic, and it’s a great example of the best-case-scenario of what can happen when a really gifted actor gets behind the camera and directs other actors.

 

The opening scene of the film works beautifully. No credits, no nothing. Just three men on horseback riding up to the yard of a ranchhouse. The owner of the ranchland, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), walks out with a gun slung over his arm to talk to the man on the middle horse, US Marshall Jack Bell (Bobby Jauregui). The Marshall tells him that he needs to take some of Bragg’s men back to town to face charges for raping and murdering some travelers. Bragg tells him that isn’t going to happen. When the Marshall orders his deputy to arrest the men, Bragg shoots all three of them in the faces, barely moving as he does so.

 

He does it the way you’d swat flies that were bothering you, without the slightest twitch of conscience. He orders the men who were going to be arrested to bury the bodies, then heads back inside. And just like that, we’re off and running. The town that sent Marshall Bell (the character, not the bug-eyed character actor) to arrest Bragg’s men, realizes that they may be in trouble when the Marshall never shows up again. Bragg’s men treat the town as their own personal playground, and with no Marshall in town, they feel free to forget all about the rule of law. The local businessmen and the figurehead mayor realize this can’t continue, so they hire help from the outside in the form of a pair of ringers: Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and his right arm, Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen).

 

And if you want to know what the film’s “about,” above and beyond the story (which is a deliberate but well-constructed yarn in its own right), it’s “about” the relationships that certain men build, where they form a partnership that supercedes everything else, a code that exists that is more binding than law. It’s about the way that code changes everything else they do. And when you’re making a movie about that, and it stars Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, and Harris is directing which means that there’s all the room in the world for these two to just act the shit out of every unspoken silence, every action beat unfolding as a duet between these two serious badasses. This film is all about the soul behind the gunslinger, and it’s verrrrry subtle stuff.

 

I’ve heard a few people complain that it’s “just” a Western, but I far prefer this approach to last year’s problematic and much-hyped 3:10 TO YUMA. That film’s got some great chemistry, but the script is one frustration after another, characters acting out of convenience instead of their already-defined nature. APPALOOSA is a film where everything happens because of the way these characters are defined. Bragg is the immovable object that is set in the path of Virgil and Everett, and the first part of the film is all about setting up how they put their irresistible force to work on the problem of taking back Appaloosa from these outlaws, as a way of defining how they work together when everything’s right.

 

That is, of course, so that when things go wrong, and they do, we understand just how wrong they go.

 

Virgil Cole makes the simple mistake of falling in love. He meets Allison French (Renee Zellweger), a new arrival in Appaloosa, and he’s flattened by her sense of culture. She represents a world back east that Virgil’s got no place in, no sense of, and he is pretty much useless from the moment she shows up. Everett knows exactly what flavor of trouble she is, but he also knows that his relationship with Virgil and his adherence to the code means that he cannot comment on her. He can’t warn Virgil off. All he can do is back Virgil’s play or walk away. No middle ground. Virgil calls the shots, and as soon as she’s in the picture, his judgment slips. It ultimately puts everything up for grabs, including ownership of the town, everyone’s lives, and the code itself, this stress caused by this woman, and what kept me hooked is the way the film so clearly builds a sense of tension thanks to the way we know these characters are going to have to react as things keep building.

 

Harris has a real feel for the classic oater, and he gives his entire cast the same room to play that he creates for himself and Viggo. Zellweger’s good as a consummate survivor, a woman whose morals depend on the company she keeps, and who turns out to have more in common with Virgil than he suspects at first. All the tough guys and townspeople are well-cast and well-played with familiar faces. In particular, Lance Henriksen shows up with his glower at full wattage, the only guy I can imagine going toe-to-toe with Harris and Mortensen side-by-side. Jeremy Irons doesn’t play quite as large a role as you might think from the way the film begins, but the way he blows with the wind is interesting, and by the end of the film, I’m not sure I’d even call him a villain. Robert Knott and Ed Harris did a nice job adapting the script from Parker’s novel, and even if the film doesn’t innovate, it’s a solid and rewarding genre treat, and my favorite of this weekend’s movies that I’ve seen so far.