REVIEW: ‘Appaloosa' saddled with orthodox vision

The quintessential American genre, the Western, has been mercifully roused to life of late. The latest entry, "Appaloosa," is firmly grounded in genre orthodoxy even as it teases at the edges of nonconformity. The results are decidedly mixed.

"Appaloosa" opens in 1882, in the Old West territory of New Mexico, a land of spacious vistas, towering sandstone rock formations and thirsty scrub brush. Conspicuously set adrift in this desert sea is the tiny town of Appaloosa, where a ruthless rancher named Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) and his swarthy gang rule with an iron fist. Desperate to be out from under Bragg's tyranny, the city fathers hire Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and his partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), peacekeepers with a reputation for restoring order in lawless towns.

The Western was invented so characters like Virgil and Everett would have a place to call home. Virgil is reserved and intense, a distant, indomitable figure who conveys absolute authority without having to utter a word. Everett is like something hewn out of mythology itself, a face of patience and passion hidden beneath a round-brimmed hat, and a wide, dandy's mustache and rectangular beard.

He says even less than Virgil, reserving his words for when they are truly necessary. (Is there any genre Mortensen can't play to absolute perfection?)

Virgil and Everett are not lawmen because they live by an overpowering code of justice (though they do), but because both are handy with a gun. Men like them either uphold the law or break it. Though they could ride as outlaws and doubtless would be darn good ones, they choose instead to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, two gun-toting marshals filling in for Kurosawa's seven samurai. "I don't kill people for a living. I enforce the law," Virgil says. "Killing is sometimes a byproduct." For Everett, "the legal stuff is just a way to make being a gunman easier."

As they go about establishing their authority in the town, Virgil and Everett find themselves distracted by the stimulating Allison French (Renée Zellweger). At first Virgil thinks she is a prostitute. She's not. But he's not far off. The only difference between a prostitute and Allison is that the prostitute gets paid for her work. Virgil is smitten. So is Everett, to a lesser degree.

Together so long that they finish each other's sentences and communicate with glances and nods, Virgil and Everett are like an old married couple. So when Allison weasels her way into the men's relationship, it is uncertain whether their friendship can survive it, much less their mission to bring the criminal Bragg to justice.

"Appaloosa" is adapted from Robert B. Parker's novel and puts director/co-writer/star Harris back behind the camera for the second time after his acclaimed directorial debut with "Pollock." "Appaloosa" is not as ambitious as last year's "3:10 to Yuma," nor as physiologically expansive as "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford."

It does nearly everything right, creating a fine-looking and mostly satisfying filmgoing experience. But it doesn't reinvent the wheel. And it plays things far too safe. Harris understands the traditions and colors of the genre implicitly, but aside from a few examples (namely the character of Allison), he does not know how to breathe new life into it.

We are never allowed to really get to know Virgil and Everett. Harris introduces us to his leads but never follows through. Everett, in the opening narration, speaks of leaving the army because it "didn't allow for much expansion of the soul." I would have loved to have seen how he found his soul in the wild, untamed West.

Even more difficult to reconcile is Harris' Virgil, who reads Emerson and is constantly trying to improve his vocabulary. Taciturn and unflappable in the mold of Gary Cooper, he is the quintessential Western lawman. But Virgil has a dark, violent, sociopathic side that rears its ugly head during moments of wounded pride and reveals a man not quite as imperturbable as we were initially led to believe. However, after an initial outburst, Harris never feels the need to address Virgil's dark side again.

Harris may underutilize Irons, but when it comes to Zellweger's Allison, he seems baffled with what to do with her. Allison's mixed morality and touching desperation make for a unique character (both wife and whore), especially in a traditional Western like this. But because Harris does not push his ideas to the point that would have raised "Appaloosa" from conventionality to greatness, Allison's character is too thin to support the impact she makes on the narrative.

Then again, it was never about Allison. For "Appaloosa," no male/female relationship could transcend the purity of the male bond.

DETAILS
APPALOOSA

Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Lance Henriksen
Director: Ed Harris
Playing at: Cinemark, Hollywood, Tinseltown
Rated: R (for some violence and language)
Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes

Grade: B