Appaloosa

New review from The Movie Snob

Appaloosa (C+). Ed Harris (The Human Stain) directs and stars in this new Western also featuring Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings) and Renee Zellweger (Cold Mountain). Harris and Mortensen are long-time pardners, out riding the range. We soon come to learn that they are lawmen for hire--when a town sprouts up too far from civilization and gets menaced by forces of evil too big for local law enforcement, it hires Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, who are handy with shooting irons and learned everything they know about law enforcement by watching Gene Hackman's character in Unforgiven. So they get hired by the town of Appaloosa in the New Mexico Territory to deal with a low-down varmint named Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons, Dungeons & Dragons) and his gang. But long about that same time, a pretty little widow-woman named Mrs. French moves to Appaloosa and turns Virgil's head. Adventures ensue. It is a good-looking movie, and you can almost feel the grit of the blowing dust down the streets of Appaloosa, but the story is just not all that gripping. I didn't even recognize pasty ol' Lance Henriksen, the android Bishop from Aliens, as another gunslinger that Virgil 'n' Everett have to deal with.