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Salesrank: 361 Released: 2009-04-16 Theatrical-Release: 2008-10-03
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Customer Reviews:
Jeremy Irons as a Cowboy? 
I could not wrap my head around the fact that Jeremy Irons played a cowboy with a very bad western/southern/cowboy accent. I am sorry, but he just could not pull it off. He is too sophisticated and polished of a British actor to be playing a cowboy. Renee Zellweger was out of her element in this film. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen work well together. I can see them as a team. The story moves too slowly and it bored me to tears to be quite honest. For cowboy/western movie fans, this will definitely work. Sorry my review was not too favorable.
WORST WESTERN I’VE SEEN SINCE TOMBSTONE(1993)!! Save your Money!! 
IF Appaloosa were a horse, I’d have to shoot it, solely because it didn’t GO ANYWHERE!! This movie is a prime example of why WESTERNS get such a bad wrap now-a-days. I took the bullet so you wouldn’t have to watch it, not even worth renting for the LANDSCAPES!! My Advice, Go see Wyatt Earp(Dennis Quaid as Doc Holiday, need I say more?) or Open Range(God Bless Michael Jeter), if you want a classic western, you can’t go wrong with Magnificent Seven or Silverado, or ANY of Errol Flynn’s Westerns! (Dodge City and They Died with Their Boots On come to mind!)
My sister and I are Movie Mavens, and being tom-boys, LOVE westerns, and this “film”, term used loosely, was not worth the RENTAL PRICE, let alone whatever their production budget was! The most redeeming thing was Viggo Mortensen’s valiant attempt to salvage the “material” he was given with his performance as Everett Hitch, by far the MOST INTERESTING, SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE STORY, but the man isn’t a miracle worker and can’t carry the whole movie on his own because he has to, unfortunately, interact with the other loathsome characters around him. This was a self-indulgent and cliche Western for Ed Harris, who “apparently” produced, directed, starred and co-wrote the screenplay adaptation from the novel. Someone PLEASE TELL HIM to stick with acting (Love Ed Harris as an actor, but this film was an all around mistake!)
If you’ve seen the Trailer, you have seen all of the best scenes in three minutes. The poor plot drags on for TWO HOURS. Great Academy AWARD WINNING or Nominated Actors didn’t show in this no plot, no action, nothing film. From the cliche music, to the lack of creativity with the names (I suppose I have to blame the author for that!) to the sauntering at a relaxed paced to the “rescue”; The order of scenes and cuts are so jarring, that there is no real definition of time, no clue of how many days/weeks had they been there, how long did it take for these events to play out, a minor thing if the film is well written and edited, but here this detail blatantly stands out. This movie was Beyond Dull!
SPOILERS follow:
Pretty straight forward western format; A town in New Mexico is in trouble and mysterious strangers come to town to help clean it up. The whole mission of cleaning up the town and bring the bad guy to justice takes a backseat as soon as the dry eyed widow Mrs. French (Zellweger) catches Marshal Virgil Cole’s (Harris) eye and fancy. As Soon as Allison French comes onto the scene, it becomes a bizarre love triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon type thing (more on this later). Mrs. French seems to have a 21st century mentality about relationships, because she’s the one who initiates courtship with Marshal Cole, and it seems within hours or days goes to bed with him, and boom they are the town sweethearts getting a house together, not giving a fig newton about her reputation as a lady of the day would no doubt have cared about. Are they just dating? engaged? just going to live together in 1893? Who knows!
The character of Mrs. Allison French (Zellweger) is weak (in personality as well as development and performance), disloyal at the drop of her corset, just unlikable and annoying from the word “hello”(Yes, Zellweger lost me AT “Hello”), and her squinty eyes only momentarily distract from her horrid costumes and deliberate delivery to SHOW she was ACTING in this movie! As if to say “it’s not me Rene Zellweger in a western, It’s Mrs. French, I am Mrs. French now! do you follow where I’m going with this?” Mrs. French must have been born a Sagittarius, because when she’s not with the Marshal she claims to love, she loves whatever man she’s with. Mrs. French reminds me of a LEECH, attaching herself to a man out of necessity, for money, protection, “gratification”, to be taken care of (obviously, this character was written by a man) and she is in constant search for the alpha male in whatever situation she finds herself in to provide her needs of the moment, who ever has the most power gets to be her bed buddy. The only difference between Mrs. French and the other “whores” in the movie is at least the “whores” get paid for what they do, their working girls with bills to pay, Mrs. French is just a slut. Usually there are two types of women in westerns, the prudish easily offended maiden, or the whores at the saloons. Mrs. French seems to be a bizarre attempt to merge the two, when the two personalities obviously contradict!! (For a wonderful western female role model examples, I would direct you to Olivia De Havilland in Dodge City and They Died with Their Boots On or Annette Bening in Open Range)
Even more idiotic, Mrs. French seems to resent that Marshal Virgil Cole is a lawman, which he had been for years before he met her!! She resents that he has to stay at his jail all day and WATCH HIS PRISONERS SO THEY DON’T, you know, ESCAPE and do more BAD THINGS!! As a character for women to identify with, she was stereotypically NEEDY, NAGGING, chronically disloyal, Dependent SOLELY on MEN, even for the time period, I understand there was no “women’s lib” back then, but there was such an idea of dignity, self-respect, and the weight of reputation; I felt no sympathy for Allison French or the PROBLEMS SHE CREATED for herself. (Again, obviously written by a man.)
Marshal Cole (Harris) likes Mrs. French because she’s “clean and smells good, chews her food nice” and isn’t like the “whores and squaws I’ve been with”, GAG! The dialogue was simple, laughable and SAD, there was an awful lot of Soap Opera introspection for Shoot EM UP COWBOYS. Cole (Harris) claims to have no feelings because he needs to compartmentalize and focus on doing his job: get the bad guys, but he’s a school boy softy when Mrs. French walks in the room and goes on PICNICS! HITCH’s (Mortensen) whore/lady friend doubles as his SHRINK on how to be the best SIDE KICK TO Marshal Cole’s (HARRIS’s) HERO. Should Hitch tell Cole that Mrs. French tried to kiss him? oh, riveting dilemma… NOT! HITCH was the only one I identified with because he’s more “sensitive than those other cowboys” and seemed to be the most noble and moral of all the other characters.
OVER ALL, the pace was dreadfully slow and there was a lack of suspense through out the film. You know that usual excited feeling you get while watching a film you’re actually enjoying, where you can’t wait to see what comes next. I didn’t CARE! Action? What action? The cleaning up the town mission is bring bad guys to justice for murder didn’t seem as important to the Marshal when his girlfriend came to town in the previously mentioned “Love Trapezoid”; We paused it after about an hour, so I could make Popcorn, just so I could have something to do during the film, eat! When Hitch and Cole finally had something to do beside drink coffee, and analyze their feelings, they ride to the “rescue” at a sauntering pace while the damsel in distress, Mrs. French, is in kidnapped and in “danger”. Don’t worry she wasn’t “defiled”, she was a willing partner with her captor, betraying her beau, Marshall Cole, again for as she said “Survival”.
The Final “GUN FIGHT” Was so anti-climatic I forgot that Jeremy Irons was even in the movie as the Villain because we hardly saw him, until he too had relations with Mrs. French (did I mention she was a slut?!) That being the apparent last straw that motivated the final gunfight, not by her suitor Marshal Cole, to defend the final shed of her “honor” if she had any to begin with that is, but by MR. Hitch to merely eliminate the Competition for his friend Marshal Cole!! Seriously?? That’s your solution? that’s you’re way of being a good side kick? What’s to stop Mrs. French from dropping her drawers with the next powerful man that comes to town!!
As previously stated, I love westerns, but this movie was/is seriously lacking!
In summary, JUST AS BAD if not WORSE than TOMBSTONE. Don’t Bother, I took the bullet so you wouldn’t have to! This is a MUST SKIP MOVIE!! SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Apalooza 
Decent Western. Even the good guys have flaws. But in the end it’s about a friendship and sacrafice.
Colt Does Make a Heavy Firearm 
I’m a big fan of Westerns and I had already read the book, so this was a no-brainer for me. I was further intrigued when I read that Ed Harris had fallen in love with the book while on vacation and had immediately purchased the rights. In my estimation, Ed Harris is one of the most underrated actors out there and I had high hopes for the movie when I learned of his involvement. I wasn’t disappointed.
The story is familiar to most fans of the genre. Rancher Randall Bragg, played with cold charm by Jeremy Irons, believes he and his men are above the law. They take food and supplies from the town of Appaloosa and create a general atmosphere of terror. Enter Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, travelling lawmen hired by the town to deal with Bragg and his henchman who have disposed of the town’s previous sheriff. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen are excellent in the roles of Cole and Hitch, capturing perfectly the complex friendship and loyalty between the two men. They institute a new set of laws and proceed to enforce them, much to the chagrin of Bragg, his men, and the town fathers alike.
Complicating matters is the arrival of a piano playing widow, Alison French, played by Renee Zellweger. She takes a fancy to Cole and the feeling is mutual. Alison has issues of her own, however, chiefly the need to be with whatever man she perceives to be the alpha male. This leads to problems later in the film.
The film deftly moves between Cole and Hitch’s efforts to bring Bragg to justice and Cole’s burgeoning relationship with Ally. The two plots come together in an unexpected fashion and lead directly to the resolution of the film.
The movie is dialog driven and moves slow in places, but it never seems ponderous. The relationship between Cole and Hitch drives the film. Their loyalty and deep bond for one another is something that Robert Parker has always been adept at creating and Harris wisely showcases these elements in his screenplay and direction. Harris’s director’s eye is impeccable, making use of classic western imagery. The attention to detail is impressive, as weapons, clothing, and setting appear authentic to the times. The violence in the movie comes in quick brutal spurts, very realistically portrayed.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, just as I had the novel. The characters act and talk the way you wish you could in real life. The casting was great and even Renee Zellweger held her own. (I was especially pleased to find that Lance Henriksen was cast as a hired gun employed by Bragg.) Ed Harris does a remarkable job as Cole, a cold man with few social graces, struggling with his feelings for Ally, driven to defeat Bragg and enforce his law. When he’s violent it is without remorse. Mortensen is equally as good as Hitch, a more emotional man, who sees the darkness in Cole, but doesn’t have it himself. As I said before, their dynamic makes the film work. This is a western in the tradition of Unforgiven (Two-Disc Special Edition) and Tombstone - The Director’s Cut (Vista Series), maybe not quite as good as those two films, but it’s damn close. Even though I knew what was coming, it was still stirring to see the action played out on the screen. The movie’s ending is elegant, holding true to the code that the two main characters have forged.
Clunky at Best 
After watching Ed Harris’s clunky treatment of the Jackson Pollock bio I had reservations with ‘Apaloosa’. Unfortunately, my reservations were confirmed. Both he and Mortensen were excellent in ‘History of Violence’, so there is every reason to anticipate their chemistry will reignite here. They look good in their roles. It’s clearly a question of the direction of an outdated script. Betrayal, loyalty, good and evil; the usual tropes are there but insufficiently examined.It was difficult to ascertain in this cliche ridden story whether the actor’s lines were ironic or simply leaden; whether the film was a parody of the genre. Take for instance the three clowns chorusing their civic concerns about the power assumed by Jeremy Irons. And given the cinemagraphic benchmark of the recent,’Assasination of Jesse James’ I wondered how a formidably 60s aesthetic and attitude would be granted production approval. Then, there are enough reviewers here on Amazon for instance, to indicate that they are willing to put such misgivings aside.Were they wanting development of Harris’s violence in the dining room when Mortenson is forced to restrain him? Did they not wonder at the sudden shift from shootout location back to Apaloosa? The magnetic Viggo Mortenson as Harris’s ‘minder’ is the film’s centrepiece and earns the few stars I’m alloting. It’s he who has something approaching a relationship with his Mexican mistress, that is with honesty and trust, insight or conscience. Yet he muses on alone at the film’s squeamish conclusion, probably aware of the paralysed misfits doomed to dwell in Apaloosa, but only faintly removed from their stupour.