Review of Appaloosa (2008) by Eric H — 08 Jun 2009

Considering the pedigree of the talent on display here, Appaloosa is a pretty big disappointment to me. And for a movie that was somewhat of a passion project for Ed Harris, it's curiously lacking in passion or even commitment.

I can understand the allure of the old school good vs. bad western, and I personally am actually a very big fan of the genre. I thought 3:10 to Yuma and Open Range were nice throwbacks to the conventional western of yesteryear, and I think that's the trend that Harris is trying to follow with Appaloosa. But I feel like the story here is distracted by an over-reliance on the Renee Zellweger character as a plot device, and I think that is ultimately this movie's undoing.

There is a workable good vs evil conflict set up between the Ed Harris character and the Jeremy Irons character, both of whom are very good at playing these archetypes of hero and villain. And Viggo Mortensen does a pretty decent Doc Holliday and develops a decent rapport with Harris. But when Zellweger's love interest character is brought in as a subplot, the love story is not credible, believable, justifiable, original, or even particularly well-executed and yet this love story does eventually become a pivotal motivating point in the film. At which point everything else just crumbles. Characters start doing things "for love" which is not in the slightest way believable or in character, but the plot has to follow this obligatory love story ridiculousness, and eventually all credibility goes right out the window.

I would say that Zellweger was badly cast in this part, except that I don't think that any actor could make this part work. The character switches alliegiances back and forth multiple times at the whim of the screenplay without any real explanation, and perhaps a more suitable actor could have worked some more complexity into the performance to try and explain it, but the explanation just isn't really in the script. It seems like it was a part that started as more of a throwaway part but needed to be beefed up to attract name talent. But instead of beefing up the complexity of the character and really giving her a foundation in character motivations, they just made more plot points hinge on her. So there's this largely empty, mostly purposeless, and totally directionless character at the center of the final rise to climactic action in the film, and that's a really shaky foundation to build on. So the story loses drive and purpose right where it's supposed to be crecendoing.

But while I don't really blame Zellweger for the character not working, I do have to make mention about Zellweger's uncomfortable presence here. She seems to be in that awkward period of really any actress's career; the point when you have to transition away from playing young to playing old. Or if not old, then at least not young. Zellweger's castability has been almost exclusively based on her pouty-lipped, uber-cute, girl-next-door sort of persona. That persona does not jive too well with the fact that she is now 40 years old. And this is the first time I've seen her on screen where her pouty-lipped smile seemed like an older woman trying to look younger. And she looks 40 here. It's possible that it may have been a choice for Zellweger and Harris to have her play the part like a woman past her prime, but even still, it doesn't work here and it's just uncomfortable. It's kinda sad to me because I have been a fan in the past, and I would like to see her find her way and adapt her persona to be comfortable in a more mature age-range. But this performance is not encouraging.

All in all, with the languid pace, the unambitious plot, the lack of narrative drive and commitment to the unambitious plot that is there, and the total failure of Zellweger's role, this film is, at its best, maybe a tiny notch above boring, and at its worst, an flat-out uncomfortable mess.