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Appaloosa
Topic Started: Oct 31 2008, 08:24 PM (205 Views)
WranglerRory
Balcony Gang
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Movie review for "Appaloosa," starring, written, produced and directed by Ed Harris, and co-starring Viggo Mortensen:


About the best part of the movie was when I found out going in that it was not a reworking of the Marlon Brando movie of the same name. Not only was it not a reworking, it was barely a working. The script uses every Western lawman device, not to raise tension but simply to fill up time. Rene Zellwegger is the love interest, and she vamps it up so successfully that I spent the first half of the movie thinking she was Diane Wiest, who is 60. There is a bare a** shot of Rene. That it is a very long shot may be the only thing that stops it from being the most unsettling bare a** movie shot since Pauline Collins in "Shirley Valentine." Just as it is padded with Western cliches, the script is also padded with banter of the sort that usually indicates that the actors are improvising a lot, i.e., making it up as they go along. The overall impression is that Harris, Morgenstern, Zellwegger and Jeremy Irons must have some piece of the film's financial action, because if real finance people were paying for it, they would have sent this script straight to video.

Without giving away much plot, it does conclude with a ride into the sunset. Someone in Hollywood should spread the word that "Blazing Saddles" pretty much killed this ending for all time. It's always good to see a new western, but this isn't a good one.

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Black Tiger
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Appaloosa is beautifully shot and had a somewhat interesting story that kept me tuned in, but it was way too slow-paced. Harris and Mortensen made a good team harkening back to the saddle pals of old. Besides that, the cast is pretty second-rate. Zellweger is made as ugly as possible. Irons is rather dull and Lance Henriksen looks to have aged about a couple of decades in the last couple of years. It's is an okay big budget tv movie, but nothing more.
Edited by Black Tiger, Oct 31 2008, 09:07 PM.
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