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Appaloosa
Stars: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Timothy Spall, Lance Henriksen, Tom Bower, James Gammon, Ariadna Gill, Timothy V Murphy, Gabirel Marantz, Bob Harris
Director: Ed Harris
Pollock, Harris first film as director, was a typical Indie - well enough made but minority interest and unlikely to draw mainstream audiences. Here, however, he shoots and scores three times, as director, co-writer (based on the novel by Robert B Parker) and star of this rousing traditional Western which, aided and abetted by strong casting, well-chosen locations and Dean Semlers evocative widescreen cinematography, is the best genre picture in recent years that has not been directed by Clint Eastwood.
Harris gets right down to business with the shooting, in New Mexico in 1882, of Appaloosas town marshal by ruthless rancher Irons (Irons, playing the Western villain to the manner born with just the right amount of cynicism and wearing the time-honoured black hat into the bargain). Enter peacekeepers Harris and Mortensen who, hired by the terrified townspeople to bring Irons and his outlaw gang to book, do just that, a task somewhat complicated by Harris dalliance with prim newcomer Zellweger who turns out to be anything but the buttoned-up woman she seems to be
Appaloosa appears as the archetypal Western frontier town down to the dusty main street down which on cure the villains ride into two for a Rio Bravo-style confrontation. Harris takes his time as director, playing fair with genre conventions, successfully establishing character and drawing fine performances from himself, Zellweger, Mortensen and other key players (including the director's father as a judge) and staging the action, gunplay and other confrontations with skill, in a thoroughly entertaining Western that enjoyably shows how the West was Wild.
Alan Frank
USA 2008. UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors. Colour.
115 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.
Review date: 28 Sep 2008