Viggo Mortensen from the movie Appaloosa

Ahhh, the almighty Western. Once the behemoth plague of T.V. and movie screens, now the American period piece art house D’jour. And as long as they are all the caliber of Ed Harris’s Appaloosa, I have no complaints

The movie itself follows in a trend of deep character realism and mythic romanticism that has wrapped itself so warmly and fittingly around the recent westerns of Unforgiven, Open Range, 3:10 to Yuma and, the high water mark, the Assassination of Jesse James. Appaloosa itself doesn’t reach the art house grandness of the Assassination of Jesse James, but that’s not the mark Appaloosa is going for.

Ed Harris has crafted Appaloosa based on a book written by Robert B. Parker as a lean, meat and potato western using everything from sparse action to the featherweight characterizations of the cast to give us a pulpy little love letter to the American West.

With a cast that includes Viggo Mortensen , Renee Zelweger, Jeremy Irons and Ed Harris, each performance gave the movie a feel of genuine reality as character not personality propel the action from violent beginning to sublime pulp ending. The only misstep being the over-the-top fear produced by the city council as they barter to hire on the gun slinging Ed Harris. Even then, the movie recovers gracefully by balancing the over-the-top acting of the city council with a drop of some character induced humor lessening the sting of this uneven moment. All of which shows Ed Harris’ continuing growth as a director.

As awards season rolls around, and more good movies are put on a limited release schedule to grab at the Oscars, I am sure that Appaloosa will not be the movie that brings Ed Harris an Oscar for his directing. But if Pollock and now Appaloosa show us anything, he may not be that far off from receiving directorial accolades that equal those given him as an actor.

Truly,