Sheriff Virgil Cole is the name. Along with deputy Everett Hitch, he arrives in Appaloosa, N.M, in the 1880s.
The town’s anxious aldermen require the duo’s gunslinging services to bring brutally law-resistent rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) to justice for a killing.
Ed Harris is Cole. The equally square-jawed Viggo Mortensen is Hitch.
They’ve traveled the territories for 12 years and, as Hitch says by way of introduction, “I’d no reason to doubt that we’d be doing just that for the foreseeable future. But life has a way of making the foreseeable that which never happens. . . .”
Yup. Throw a filly into the mix and things are bound to get complicated. Though, we’re pleased to report, not in the ways you’d necessarily expect.
Renee Zellweger purses her lips a little too much when her character, Allie, sashays into town and turns Cole’s head. She is not a whore, a common occupation. Nor is she a virgin. And this not-quite-black-or- white quality to life in general gives “Appaloosa” gritty appeal.
Harris directs with a steady hand and sharp eye for the best in his fellow actors.
Still, the surest chemistry and the movie’s leisurely pleasures come from Cole and Hitch’s long association, and the laconic joy Mortensen and Harris take in the deep wells and amusing dry spells of their cowboy conversation.
Directed by Ed Harris; written by Harris and Robert Knott; from the book by Robert B. Parker; photography by Dean Semler; starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons. R for some violence and language. 1 hour, 47 minutes. Opens today at area theaters.
