On Screen / Linda Cook

'Appaloosa' is one of the best movies of the year

By Linda Cook | Thursday, October 09, 2008 | () comments

“APPALOOSA”

Running time: Just shy of two hours

Rated: R for violence, foul language, sexual situations and nudity

For those of you who yearn for Westerns such as “3:10 to Yuma” and “Tombstone,” here’s another one you should reach for.

“Appaloosa” is an adult Western that’s character-driven. Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) are longtime friends who arrive in Appaloosa, N.M., during 1882. They’ve been hired by the town leaders (including Timothy Spall, who you may recognize from the “Harry Potter” movies) to control crime in the town. The crime is mostly perpetrated by rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) and his men.

Cole and Hitch are no Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They’re tough, grizzled men who aren’t afraid to kill others. They’re not big talkers. Virgil, in fact, lets Everett teach him a thing or two about words, which often escape him even though he knows what he wants to say.

Bragg has recently killed a marshal in another city. He meets Cole and Hitch right away and goes out to set a trap for them. In the meantime, another kind of trap arrives in the form of a sophisticated widow, Mrs. French (Renee Zellweger). Right away, she seems to have eyes for Virgil, who doesn’t know what to make of this attractive woman who plays the piano and “chews her food real nice.” Virgil hasn’t exactly had a history of consorting with women who aren’t prostitutes, and he hardly knows what to make of Mrs. French’s affections.

This show is a kinda, sorta buddy film in which the friendship between the two gunslingers remains the focus of the story. Both actors round out their characters as people you’ll like and remember. Mrs. French’s character is one of the most complex, fascinating female roles this year. Irons is wonderfully sinister as Bragg, and he has terrific backup in the too-seldom-seen Lance Henriksen.

Ed Harris has a kind of Clint Eastwood thing going for him. Eastwood keeps developing as a filmmaker and actor, and so does Harris, who directs and helped write the screenplay. (He even sings one of the songs that plays during the ending credits.)

This isn’t a typical Western, which means you won’t always know what’s coming. It’s a film with a lot of surprises, all of which make good sense as the story unfolds.

Saddle up for one of the best movies of the year.