For the past half decade or so we have seen a minor resurgence of the Western. Films like Open Range, 3:10 To Yuma, and The Assassination of Jesse James have revitalized the dying genre. These films (and a few others) have taken the Western in brave, exciting new directions. Now comes Appaloosa, Ed Harris' second directorial effort. To say it does not live up to those previously mentioned films would be an understatement. This film might have felt fresh back before 1992 and Unforgiven, but now it just comes across as redundant and often quite illogical. One might say that we should take any Western we can get in such sparse times, but I would argue that it is films like Appaloosa that killed the genre off in the first place.It's only fair to start off with what works best: Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris. Together, these two make for an interesting and sometimes fun combination. The way they portray their characters gives you the sense of a long, unspoken history. And neither plays their character as totally likable. These two are brought in to marshall a lawless town, but they have a mean streak themselves - can they be truly trusted with this town's safety? At one point Harris beats up a bar patron, nearly killing him before Viggo intervenes. A film that played off this aspect, the idea that the men the town turn to in a time of need might not be any better than the people they need protecting from could have been truly inspired. That is not this film.
Instead, we get a love story. It is here that the film completely falls off the rails so drastically that it kind of stuns the viewer. Renee Zellwegger comes into town and Harris immediately falls for her. She is portrayed as an annoying, conniving, shrill woman, and the idea that Harris would, even for a second, fall for her is never justified. It goes against the very nature of the character that has been set up to that point of the film. Zellwegger's character isn't really supposed to be likable, but when so many plot points hinge around worrying about her safety, or carrying about her relationship with our hero, it undermines everything else the film has going for it. There is a scene in which her character is kidnapped and the bad guys demand that their captured leader be turned over in exchange for her. The film gives us no reason to think these two lawmen would ever go through with it, but go through with it they do. It is undermined even further when it is revealed that she may have been in cahoots with the villains all along. That Harris learns this and does not care is the final straw that destroys the credibility of his character and this film.
The film builds to a climax that in another film would have felt powerfully devastating, but here is humdrum and unnecessary. Because it once again hinges around the Zellwegger character, the emotion that should be derived from the final showdown is drained because we don't feel the scene should have ever happened. The friendship of the two leads hinges on what happens in the end, but it shouldn't have to. Viggo's character makes a decision based in part on his belief that Zellwegger and Harris belong together. We know they don't belong together, but the film and its characters do not. It is an ending ripped straight from Unforgiven, but it lacks any of the bittersweet impact. It's a final nail in the coffin of a misguided film.
Appaloosa hits certain expected notes from any Western, and for that I do not damn this film completely. Had Zellwegger not been in the film, it could have been pretty great, actually. Viggo and Harris do some good stuff, and Jeremy Irons as the villain is pretty fun. The direction is nothing special, and the cinematography is downright bland, but the mood the film has in the opening scenes would have been enough to carry this film to a passable grade. With the genre hanging by the most tenuous threads with the general public, one can only hope that a film like Appaloosa doesn't cut those threads completely.
