Review of Appaloosa (2008) by Adam G — 29 Nov 2011

The western genre happens to be one of my absolute favorites so Appaloosa seemed to be getting solid reviews and I love Mortensen, and Harris is a great actor, while being a pretty strong director as well. Naturally all of this easily got me out to the theater to check out the film with fairly mid-range expectations.

The direction in the film is very simplistic and I enjoyed it for much of the film. However this simplistic style slows things down, which works when the characters are developing but it's kind of annoying when the movie becomes slightly tedious towards the end. At 1 hour and 53 mins it's not a good sign when you feel bored 20 minutes before its over, however it's not a bad show of direction at all. I think Harris is a fine director, but really it's the script that seemed to kind of botch things up. I'll critique that later.

The cinematography is very still for much of the film, but its a great way to really show off how beautifully you can light as a Director of Photography. The film is done by veteran Cinematographer Dean Semler, best known for his work on "Dances With Wolves". He does a fantastic job of framing those simple wide shots and making the colors and lighting pop right off the screen.

The acting in the film is pretty solid from most of the cast. Ed Harris plays Virgil Cole (who's name is repeated a fairly ridiculous number of times throughout the film) and gives a very stereotypical manly performance in which he's kind of stupid, but he always try's to be smarter than he really is. He ends up stuttering on words and having to ask for help from his more educated partner, Everett Hitch, played by Viggo Mortensen. Virgil inflicts brash, manly destruction when he gets angry, has a tough time understanding and being romantic with women, and seems to be an oaf of a man struggling to become a more intellectual man. He's got very old fashioned straight forward values and while this may sound very stereotypical, to a certain extent, his character is handled very well and that was not part of the film that I took a large amount of issue with. Mortensen gives a much calmer, controlled performance as his partner who is everything that Harris is not, except that Mortensen is still not someone to be messed with while he's holding a gun. Renee Zellwegger gave a decent performance, but her character wasn't all that interesting, and it didn't seem like there was much for her to play around with. She played a kind of typical women part, and both Harris's masculine role and Zellwegger's feminine role play off of stereotypes of each gender as they clash together. Jeremy Irons gives a fairly typical bad guy performance in the film, except that it was a bit odd that he was a British outlaw in the old west. That was not so typical (or believable but who cares?).

The writing is where I think Appaloosa had it's major issues. It's got some golden lines, and many of the man/women relationship aspects are amusing as well, but much of the movie is slightly hokey and it felt as though I was watching a bloodier, longer, color episode of "Gunsmoke" at times. The films second half is likely it's weak link. As soon as the outlaw Bragg (Irons) makes an escape from a transport train I'd say the movie turns for the worst. It still continues with the rugged man archetype aspect which as I said seemed to work fine, but it just got so slow after that that it was a bit difficult to sit still in some scenes. This is coming from the guy whose favorite movie last year was the 3 hour "The Assassination of Jesse James" so that should tell you just how tedious "Appaloosa" becomes. The very end is fairly satisfying, however Mortensen's voice over is a bit cheesy and unnecessary. Both at the beginning and end he has a few lines of voice over that make your eyes roll a bit.

My biggest complaint about the film however is the fact that I can't answer the question, Why was this made? When a stupid movie like "Date Movie" comes out and makes me want to throw up because it's so bad I can say "It was made to make the studio money." and as sad as that is, it is still a reason. There were two western's last year that were very very different from each other. One was "3:10 to Yuma" and the other "The Assassination of Jesse James". "3:10" was fairly fast moving, entertaining, and in the end, a fairly commercial crowd-pleaser of a film. "Assassination" was a work of art, that showcased some of the best cinematography of all time, as well as giving the viewer some very interesting insight into history that can easily teach us lessons about fame and obsession, linking to our fame enthralled modern day society. "Appaloosa" is kind of entertaining sometimes and kind of serious sometimes. It doesn't give much insight into history, and it moves as slow as a snail other times. I don't understand what drove Ed Harris to say "I want to write and direct this film." What was so interesting about it?

Is "Appaloosa" a bad film? No, it's just not a very good one. It's a modest film that gives viewers a few chuckles and showcases some very solid acting from a talented cast of artists. The style is refreshing at times, but it slows the film down and ultimately, if the material was more new or interesting the style shouldn't have bogged it down or made it tedious at all. This just isn't fresh or engaging enough to grab my attention and while the first hour is cliche, but charming, the next 40 or so minutes after that are annoyingly cliche and don't seem to work like the beginning of the film does. The last bit of the film were Mortensen comes to the conclusion that he has to make everything right, is actually a fairly satisfying ending to an otherwise oddly dissapointing film that happens to be part of a genre I keep ever so near to my heart.

4.5/10.