Appaloosa (2008) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2008
Director: Ed Harris
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Renée Zellweger, Lance Henriksen, Jeremy Irons, Ariadna Gil
Rating: R
Release Date: 17 September 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

The Movie Review

Appaloosa film still 1


APPALOOSA
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

Back in my childhood, when I was given some money to spend on movies. No doubt, I would use it to rent Betamax of any Kung Fu, Horror or Warkop movies. With Rp 5,000 I could get 5 movies which means Rp. 1000 each, that's just about 1/10 of a Dollar! But I knew that even though I liked Western Films (Pelm Koboiy in Indonesian), I didn't need to rent them, I just simply wait for my dad to bring home some of those western badass flicks. We don't have too many western movies nowadays, at least in terms of quality. And Appaloosa is all about quality although it became 'different' because of that quality.

Set in the year 1882, the town of Appaloosa is being robbed and controlled by some bandits. Led by Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), this band of outlaws is notorious for their evil doings. The latest Sheriff and his deputies were shot to death when trying to arrest the people who had raped and killed a couple from Chicago. In the same time, two stern lawmen, Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) drops by at Appaloosa and offering the Aldermen (the senior members) there to eradicate the bandits, in return for being a City Marshall and Deputy of the town. On one hot dusty day, a refined woman, Allie French (Renée Zellweger) arrives in the town and immediately captures Cole and Everett's attention for her delicate being, a great test for Cole who believes that feelings 'can get you killed'. Could Cole and Everett solve the town's troubles? Or are their presence in Appaloosa will just create even bigger problems?

The combination of Ed Harris, Lance Henriksen, Viggo Mortensen and the lawless western era is just super badasssss. No doubt about that. They are super cool men who behave in a western ways, hard, straight-to-the-point and fearless. Of course the acting capacity is anything but mediocre. If you still remember in the 2005 action film titled A History of Violence, Viggo and Ed were rivals and they've given splendid performances, and now in Appaloosa they are still as good as usual, and concerning this movie's running length is about 116 minutes, you got to see their performances longer than in their previous film. And Ed Harris' directing as well as the set of Appaloosa and the musical score really spells good quality motion picture.

Unfortunately Appaloosa arguably would bore most general moviegoers. As it is common with many Viggo's movies, it's all about quality but far from being popcorn entertainment. To shoot it straight, although Appaloosa is a western film, there aren't many shooting scenes or wagon chases, horses are often used only for traveling, and the unique town of Appaloosa is not used for anything tension-inducing, there are Indians but they don't do war with the cowboys. Appaloosa in the core is about friendship where the characters almost become drama queens. Although I would prefer the movie is about Macho-men drama. Appaloosa is a character-driven movie, how the men are evaluating their long years of friendship and how they are starting to change and how feelings slowly alter their strict code of rules. On the level with you all, the beginning of the movie until Renée's shows up is really cool, but afterwards it becomes boring and serves only to showcase the actors' great acting talent. Besides, I think Ashley Judd would've done better than Renée in this type of movie.

Slow pacing, great acting.. Boring action scenes, beautiful cinematography.. High on drama, low on bullets.. But the DVD contains hefty insights to the making of Appaloosa. All in all Appaloosa is a macho-men drama set in western world. You decide.

More of modern western movies: 3:10 to Yuma (2007 remake), A Gunfighter's Pledge (2008) and Redemption: A Mile from Hell (2009).