Appaloosa (DVD)

I grew up watching Westerns; some were good, some were bad, and a very few were truly excellent examples of film making."The Searchers" and "High Noon," are as good, for instance, as any movie ever made both for the quality of the writing and for the nuanced performances of the actors. Those two films, and a handful of others, are more than cowboy movies featuring iron-jawed heroes who are quick on the draw. Instead, they are psychological profiles of the men, and women, who settled the West at a time when "the law" was often non-existent in any real sense. They are films that transcend any specific genre."Appaloosa" isn't quite in that same category but it is an excellent movie; one that deals realistically with the tenor of the times. It features great writing, wonderful performances - especially by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen - and beautiful cinematography.The premise is straightforward. A small New Mexico town is under the thumb of a greedy rancher who runs roughshod over the people and businesses of Appaloosa. The rancher - nicely played by Jeremy Irons - is, among other things, a killer who has murdered the town marshal and his two deputies. In response to their murders, the town's leaders contract with Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Mortensen) to bring him to justice and end his reign of terror.Cole and Hitch are itinerant "lawmen" who have worked together for a dozen years. They are not idealists and they hold no illusions about who they are and what they do. Killing is not something they enjoy, nor is it something they are conflicted about; it is simply what they do when it needs to be done. They are not especially nice people but they are good at their jobs.And they are friends.True friends.Harris and Mortensen, who are longtime friends in real life, bring that sense of brotherly comradeship to the screen in subtle ways. Their characters have been together long enough, have seen and done enough, that they understand one another completely. They have been partners for so long - and been in enough life-and-death situations together - that they have no need for long conversations; a nod here, a facial expression there, and a small gesture are all they really need to communicate.But change, in the form of a shapely widow played by Renee Zellweger, is in the wind. She arrives in town with a dollar in her purse and no prospects. Almost without thinking, Cole helps her get a job as a piano player at the town's only hotel after a conversation in which she embarrasses him when he asks if she is a whore.Cole is fascinated by her for reasons that he can't quite explain. She is unlike any woman he has ever met in the past and it's not long before he - quite uncharacteristically - begins courting her. In the end that leads to trouble but to reveal any more of the plot would spoil the movie and it's not my intention to do that. I will simply say that Zellweger's character - Allie French - is a very complicated woman."Appaloosa" is what I would call a "quiet" movie. The dialogue is not verbose; the humor is understated, and the gunfights are over in a flash. The closing scene is as dramatic as any I've seen in the past 20 years and illustrates perfectly the relationship that Hitch and Cole have developed over their many years together.In short, this is a 5-star film and a movie I highly recommend.

As a student of the west this story is more authentic than any film I've yet seen. All the elements are there. A single psychopathic killer who bullies not only the public but law enforcement and potential witnesses such that law doesn't apply to him. In marginal areas near to Mexico this was often the case because the prospects of thievery of Mexican cattle drew such characters to those regions. In fact the Bragg character could have been based on King Fisher of south Texas. After Fisher's friend, a savage gunsman named Ben Thompson, murdered one of San Antonio's most popular citizens Thompson beat the rap in court, but was later assassinated by a group of San Antonio vigilantes just as Bragg is killed in this film. At the time that Thompson committed this murder he was the City Marshall of Austin, which shows how a vicious gunsman can bully a town into making him their law enforcement officer. Fisher was also a Deputy in nearby Uvalde. Cities hired gunsmen out of fear or desperation, and both are depicted here, and such men were unpredictabily violent to citizens. The events in this film all have their basis in actual facts. Even the Zellweger character is true to form as a desperate opportunist, and so is Harris' need for her despite her lack of any love for him. That kind of real yet dysfunctional relationship is all too common and almost never depicted in film. It is a great story.

If you're a fan of the Robert B. Parker Hitch and Cole series, this is a must to have. Parker worked with Harris to produce this movie and it's very true to the book. Ed Harris plays Virgil Cole perfectly, he won't shake hands.. "I never saw much good comin' from letting another man get ahold of you". He's always trying to expand his vocabulary so he reads a lot. Hitch has to help him find the word he's looking for sometimes, "Virgill has a vocabulary so big he hasn't figured out how to use it yet" says Hitch.Harris explains how they came up with the "eight gauge" side-by-side shotgun for the movie, almost a character in the story itself. In this book series, Hitch is a very large man but Mortinson does such an excellent job of bringing the character to life he seems like a better fit that the book image.I went out and collected all the paperback books from the series after seeing this movie. It's all a set that is making the rounds of my friends.

Casting Renee Zellweger as a “a beautiful, dangerous widow” is a real leap and all those tight close-ups of her face didn’t add much to this movie. it’s a solid story told in a very long and dragged out method that challenges your ability to stay through the first hour but the second hour more than made up for it. When all else fails there’s a lot of great scenery to get your attention and the ending is well worth the wait. It could stand a little editing to help it get to the point more quickly but if you like a western based on characters this one shouldn’t disappoint.

This is a great western.. The heroes aren't infallible and the damsel in distress isn't really admirable and the villain isn't...well, the villain is a bad guy.In a time when there are all kinds of remakes this one was original-ish. The book was written by Robert Parker of the"Spenser for Hire" series of books.Rene Zellwiger is dreadful, but besides that it was a damned good movie. I lose patience with the casting of a Brit as the bad guy in the western but Jeremy Irons is so easy to hate it was alright.Viggo kills it. If you like westerns you'll like this one.

Similar story to Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" where a Marshall and his deputy is hired to kill outlaws running riot in a gold-digging town. Only this movie is badly made and much slower so be prepared to drift off and go asleep.

Ed Harris & Viggo Mortensen are epically good in this film about two lawmen gun for hire type friends, managing to convey a long friendship, simply with looks showing their class as actors, backed up with excellent performances by Jeremy Irons, Timothy Spall, Renee Zellweger, easily one of the best westerns I have ever seen, it's not all guns blazing, but when there is menace and action it's convincing! Loved it!

Superb laconic Western, based on the Robert B Parker novel. Cole and Hitch are old-fashioned lawmen, called in to clean up a town which a local rancher (Jeremy Irons) has effectively taken over, having killed the previous sheriff. C & H's tough brand of peace-keeping doesn't always go down well with the local merchants who are their employers, but that's par for the course. Matters are complicated by a lady, of course, and Cole's dalliance with Mrs French creates problems both in terms of emotions and lawkeeping.The brilliance of this film is in the relationship between Cole (Ed Harris) and Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), the top gunslinger aspiring to gentility and the war-weary West Point graduate. The film hews very close to the original book, especially in the terse dialogue between the two main characters, which is very amusing at times. One of the best Westerns ever, IMHO.If you like it, you should read the book, and its sucessors - Brimstone, Resolution, and Blue-Eyed Devils

"Appaloosa" verges on being a great film. I many respects, it is a traditional Western and not at all revisionist. You could almost count off the stereotypical scenes in the film whether they be the stand offs in the saloon, the steam train going over the wooden bridge, an Indian raid and a duel with the principle baddie. However, there are many other aspects that make this wholly original, not least the tight and laconic dialogue. Even the Miles Davis' inspired trumpet in the film score matches the nature of the two main protagonists. Needless to say, this is a strong cast and the acting is of the top notch. For me, "Appaloosa" benefits from two exceptionally strong leads and a fascinating female lead in Renee Zellwigler whose character is far from the demure ladies you find in most other Westerns. The dialogue feels contemporary and accurate.The whole of the film is strongly character driven but also includes some wonderful sets and nice period touches. The film feels authentic not only in it's setting but also the dialogue - Ed Harris' character experiences difficulty with large words and both him and his partner Viggo Mortensen are nicely etched to become characters as fascinating as the kind of cowboy played by Clint Eastwood in the old spaghetti Westerns even if this is far from the usual cinematic expectations. I felt that they both had a terrific rapport in this film and, in my estimation, this is very much the main interest in this film - for large parts of this film the scenes consist of two cowboys simply chewing over the fat. They are almost like a married couple in some respects. In my opinion, this is a good film and only it's slow-ish pace lets it down as not being an all-time classic. I agree totally with the earlier observation that this film does have the making of a cult film. There always seems to have been a need for each generation of film maker to re-define the Western from the 1950's heyday where the action could be fast and furious but often resembled "Tom and Jerry" in stetsons i n it's cartonnish violence. In the 1990's kevin Costner seem to recast the Western as a hero for Guardian readers but in "Appaloosa" Ed Harris has fashioned an alternative which harks back to the golden era of John Wayne yet offers two far more faceted heroes and a baddie in Jeremy Irons who is creepy as opposed to threatening. The violence is generally limited to sporadic and sudden shoot-outs but this is one Western where the lines certainly hit all their targets. This is a re-freshing piece of film making and an enjoyable piece of film making.

Appaloosa is an American western based on the 2005 novel, Appaloosa, by crime writer Robert B. Parker. Directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott, Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger and Jeremy Irons. The film premiered in the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in selected cities on September 19, 2008, then expanded into wide-release on October 3, 2008.The movie shares some narrative similarities with the 1959 Western Warlock, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Richard Widmark. There is also a 1966 Western named The Appaloosa which stars Marlon Brando, but the two films are unrelated.