Appaloosa (2008)

Director: Ed Harris
Starring: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger

Synopsis:
Two freelance lawmen are hired as city marshals to bring a murderous landowner to justice.

Impressions:
I can remember seeing the trailers for this back when it came out and thinking, "A Western with Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen and Jeremy Irons? Count me in." It just took me 14 years to get around to it. I liked the dynamic between Virgil (Harris) and Everett (Mortensen), but I felt Jeremy Irons was sorely underutilized. If you've got Jeremy Irons as your antagonist, you make the most of it. I would've liked something more to the effect of 3:10 to Yuma where the focus would've been on the captive and his captors, maybe with Bragg rooting out and exploiting cracks in the relationship between the two longtime partners. They actually had some setup that could've paid off to this effect, but it wasn't used. I can remember when I first started watching the story unfold, I couldn't see how the conflict could hold for the runtime. Then the woman appeared and I was like, "Oh, fudge." Only I didn't say fudge. (A Christmas Story, ladies and gentlemen.) It didn't take long for Mrs. French to start impacting the story the way I would've expected, but she ended up taking it even farther than that. Still, it wasn't quite pushed hard enough to really have punch, which left me feeling underwhelmed overall. It's worth seeing for the acting and character work but if it was better at making the most of its potential, it really could've been top-rate. A shame, but hopefully you can appreciate what we get.

Rating:
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