Friday, October 3, 2008

Movie review: Appaloosa

Shoot the piano player - please.

By John P. Meyer

Give actor and sophomore filmmaker Ed Harris credit for having the balls to take on the Western genre, which has been mostly ignored by Hollywood for a number of years. But it would take a pair the size of those on the Hereford bull paraded through the streets of Appaloosa to bluff one's way through declaring this choppy, half-baked horse opera a good movie. It has all the trappings of the classical Western without any of the poetry: it's a grand-vista beautiful, period-accurate, vacuous shell of a film.

Harris plays Virgil Cole, a town tamer called in by three nervous councilmen in an attempt to keep their frontier town from being taken apart a few boards at a time by the rapacious cowboys employed by local rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons, sneering from beneath his concho-studded Stetson).

As part of the Virgil Cole package, the townsmen get Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen, sporting a Doc Holliday-via-Val Kilmer 'stache and goatee), and it's a good thing, because - through long acquaintance - Hitch knows how to deal with the foibles exhibited by his friend and partner. (Well, most of them, anyway.)

In a nod to the classics, three seems to be an unpropitious number in this play: when town Marshall Jack Bell (played - briefly - by Robert Jauregui, Steve Martin's stunt double) and two hapless deputies ride out to Bragg's ranch to take some murdering ranch hands into custody, they are gunned down without further ado by Bragg himself.

"And I thought Eragon was a bad career move..."

Perhaps more serious in the city father's eyes is the fact that Bragg's boys are refusing to pay their bar tabs and store bills. Can't have commerce without a profit, as everyone knows. (Or ought to.)

Thus when Cole demands the townsmen sign off on him as the ultimate legal authority in terms of all things Appaloosa, they need little time for reflection - particularly after three (that's right: THREE) rowdy cowboys from Bragg's crew sashay into the saloon in the midst of their deliberation and start pissing on the bar. (I mean, at least they could have aimed for the spittoon.) Cole and Hitch make short work of this trio, who are operating under the impression that they are top predators. When in fact they're worm food walking.

It develops that Cole and Hitch are a bit weak on the Law (Virgil has a nasty habit of pistol whipping folks for no good reason, and beating saloon patrons within a beard stubble of their lives because they used salty language in front of a lady). To counteract this shortcoming, they are pretty spectacularly accomplished in the Order department, and before long the rules of commerce are reestablished in the dusty southwestern burgh under their care.

"Not compensating. I swear to God."

All this transpires in perhaps the first twenty minutes of the movie, which should give you an idea about the level of character development brought into play. (Hint: there isn't any.) For those more interested in gunfight procedurals than traditional film entertainment, Appaloosa is going to be a real pleasure to watch. None of this fast draw bullshit: instead, men preparing to engage in pistol duels hold their sidearms at the ready, hammers cocked, as they approach a potential lead-slinging confrontation. And the firearms themselves are period-accurate for the stated 1882 time period, including Colt Peacemakers, toggle-action Winchesters and - of course - Hitch's double-barreled eight-gauge shotgun, which Viggo reportedly lugged around like a babe in arms during the shoot.

(On the other hand, the hard-core SASS folks will probably find themselves yawning - along with everyone else - during the extended desultory front porch conversations engaged in by the lead players as they make a stab at character-defining exposition.)

"Why, Mr. Cole - I never! Well, hardly ever. Not in the last half-hour, anyway."

The stage having thus been set, arriving on the stage from parts east is widow Allison French (Renée Zellweger). Allie's character is enigmatic for about five minutes, until it's established that her core agenda involves hooking up with whatever big strong man rules whatever roost she happens to find herself occupying presently. Regardless of his politics.

Things happen mighty sudden-like in the romance department, with Allie and Cole cohabiting at the hotel and preparing to move into a house on the edge of town. Their whirlwind courtship is interrupted by the escape of cardboard-evil Bragg from the clutches of the law, and the appearance on the scene of complicating characters Ring and Mackie Shelton (Lance Henriksen and Adam Nelson). The Shelton boys are well known to Cole as accomplished hired gunhands; thus, their presence in the neighborhood is immediately suspect.

Aside from the peculiar (and not entirely explicable) lack of tension present when gunmen facing quick death square off in the street to trade lead telegrams, there are a lot of other things off-kilter about this movie. First and foremost is the editing, which incorporates nothing in the way of transition: scenes are seemingly spliced together one after another with big gaps in exposition contained between them, as we struggle to determine how far removed this episode might be (in temporal terms) from that last one. Jeff Beal's scoring is weak, offering nothing approaching the level of grandeur reflected in the spectacular New Mexico-filmed location shots. And the dialog - with a few clever exceptions - seldom rises above the level of vapid.

"Aw, Hell. I cain't reach my coffee cup."

(For instance: we are told on three separate occasions - in three different ways - that Virgil Cole's previous experience with women involves only "whores and squaws." And - as (SPOILER ALERT!) Everett Hitch rides off into the sunset at the end of the movie, voice-over narration informs us that he is - you guessed it - riding off into the sunset. Or words to that effect.)

Worst of all, in retrospect, is the ill use made of such a talented troupe of actors, none of whom are going to have anything to write home about in regard to their performances in this film. Ms. Zellweger in particular seems annoyingly miscast as the piano playing widow French - she's just too dang cutesy to convince as a homespun femme fatale whose mere presence in the room can turn homicidal hard cases into quivering, drooling schoolboys. For his part, Mr. Mortensen has little to do aside from gazing out from under his hat brim and occasionally pulling the trigger. (Oh - and riding off into the sunset.)

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