Appaloosa

<- spoilers below ->

This movie could have been called A History of Violence, part 2. It reunites Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen in a Western written and directed by Harris. It has similarities with the aforementioned movie in that there is a streak of violence that lurks beneath the surface of the main character in the movie. In A History of Violence that violence was lurking beneath Viggio's character, here it is beneath Ed Harris'. We see hints of that streak in the barroom scene where Virgil beats a man because he is angry about something else.
The movie reminds me of My Darling Clementine and High Noon. The town people invite the lawmen for hire in, and then wonder if the cure is worse than the illness. The villain, played by Jeremy Irons, is driven out but then of course, must return for the final showdown.
Ultimately, the movie, which is beautiful to look at, falls short because it is probably more truthful than the two classic Westerns referred to above. In Appaloosa, the villain is killed, but for reasons that are less than noble. Everett kills him to give his friend, Virgil a better chance at happiness in the town with his flawed woman. The killing, which was done for pragmatic reasons, was probably more truthful than the idealistic reasons portrayed in most classic Westerns.
Revisionist Westerns with its flawed characters are probably more honest than the classics, but they are probably also less fun. Movies that have a hero wearing a white hat somehow makes you feel good about yourself, particularly in times when things aren't going so well.
I like Westerns and I think this was an interesting movie. If you don't like Westerns you may want to pass on Appaloosa.

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Not a massive western fan but this looks very interesting and I meant to see it at the cinema but never got around to it. From what I know about this film, it got a decent response from audiences. But yeah, the comparisons to the excellent A History Of Violence are inevitable due to the leads. I will rent it out and see if it's as good as I HOPE it will be. Thanks for the review.

Nice review Ucon... I really liked Appaloosa and regret that I missed it on the big screen... I loved the interaction between Harris and Mortensen's characters... and hope they team up for future movies (preferably Westerns)...

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Good review. I enjoyed this film as well.

I'm trying to see your comparision with My Darling Clementine and High Noon. In the first film, Henry Fonda as Earp takes a job nobody else wants and as I recall is basically supported by the citizens, since no one likes the Clinton mob. In real life, the town was more divided on the issue--you see more of that in Tombstone. As for High Noon, all of the good citizens seem to like Marshall Kane, with the possible exception of his ambitious deputy. But they are afraid to stand up against the gunmen and they hope that if Kane leaves town, nothing will happen. It's not so much that they fear he will do too good a job in bringing down the killers as they are afraid that he won't be successful in his attempt.

I can think of a couple of other Westerns where the townspeople turn against the law they've hired--Lawman with Burt Lancaster as an unforgiving US Marshal. Warlock where a town hires gunman Henry Fonda as marshal and are later rawhided by him and his gunman friend Anthony Quinn. There was also another movie with Richard Widmark playing a long-time sheriff who the town leaders shoot down in the street, but I can't remember the title. There's also some element of the town turning against the law in the original Posse, staring Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern, where Douglas starts out as the leader of a tough proffession posse that's cleaning up the state and ends up wrecking his political ambition when Dern turns his posse into an outlaw band.

As for the "less than noble" killing in Appaloosa, there were no "noble" killings in the real west. The James boys, the Youngers, and the Daltons shot down unarmed bank clerks, gunman Wes Hardin shot a sleeping man and eventually was shot in the back as were Jesse James and William Butler Hickok. Billy the Kid and friends killed the sheriff of Lincoln County from ambush behind an adobe wall as the sheriff walked by. In Appaloosa, the marshal and his deputy go out for an "honorable" showdown with the two gunman brothers only to be ambushed by them, a cousin, and their prisioner in a 4-to-2 fight. Personally I liked the scene where the heavy and the deputy already have their guns drawn when they meet in the street, because that's the way it really happened in the West. Rather than being revisionist, Appaloosa was much more authentic in costume, firearms, action, and motivation than that very bad remake of 3:10 to Yuma. But then I haven't identified with Western heroes since the Roy Rogers Saturday matinees when I was a kid.

I loved Posse, one of my favorite westerns.

I've not seen this movie, but I take it it has nothing to do with the Brando film, The Appaloosa.

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No, it doesn't. This Appaloosa refers to a New Mexico town called Appaloosa. Although I thought the two lead characters were interestingly-quirky, I thought the movie itself was muddled and clichéd. I also don't buy into the idea that it's all that authentic, except that maybe it depicted the Old West as the boring place it may well have been.

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Basically the Old West was boring, by modern standards. Certainly it moved at a much slower pace, the fastest mode of transportation being the railroad that ripped along at what, 30 mph tops. And most people West of the Mississippi could go their whole lives without even seeing, much less riding a train. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, there was only about 100 miles of rail laid in all of Texas, and not all of that mileage was connected. And there were no railroads across the Mississippi River back then because there were no bridges spanning that body of water. Roads, if they existed at all, were bad, dusty when dry and mud bogs when wet. As a result many people spent their whole lives within a few miles of where they were born. Aside from boom towns, most villages were tiny with few stores and virtually no entertainment aside from occasional church socials or religious festivals or election day. Evangelical revivals were popular in that it brought many farm and ranch families together for several days and nights of socialization. Otherwise, people were isolated on farms and ranches miles from their nearest neighbors and worked from before sunrise to after dark trying to keep the family clothed and fed. The Great Plains were so flat and dull and the wind blew so constantly that it literally drove some settlers mad. Alcoholism was common with people drinking more per capita back then than they do today.

Basically, life in the Old West was probably a lot like pilots describe flying today--hours of monotony interspersed by moments of terror from Indians, outlaws, wild animals, and nature.

Of all those things, I believe that Appaloosa has outlaws.

I agree that the movie was clichéd but I didn't think it was muddled. As a matter of fact, I thought the plot was pretty straightforward and simple. And when it comes to Westerns, I like clichés. It's one reason I like the Ranown cycle of movies from Budd Boetticher. You know what is going to happen but it's the little difference in each movie that makes it interesting. It's almost like Boetticher was saying, "My last movie was pretty good but I'm going to change just a few little things in this one and see if I can make it better."
In Appaloosa, which had a plot line similar to hundreds of other Westerns, we have a couple of different twists. The woman was seriously flawed and the lawman kills the outlaw to help his friend, even though he knows it isn't right.
But why these twists? Is Appaloosa saying something about America's involvement in Iraq? We are invited in, the people are happy when we toss out the tyrant, but then we overstay our welcome. Then we decide to "build a house" there and stay? Are we killing people for our own selfish economic reasons? What does the woman represent?
On the surface, Appaloosa may be clichéd and simple, but underneath it may be making some pretty interesting points.

Originally Posted by uconjack

Is Appaloosa saying something about America's involvement in Iraq? We are invited in, the people are happy when we toss out the tyrant, but then we overstay our welcome. Then we decide to "build a house" there and stay? Are we killing people for our own selfish economic reasons?

Obviously you got more out of that film than I did since I stopped smoking those hand-rolled cigarettes. As Freud—or maybe it was Groucho—once said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”