No revival for western genre

It’s pretty obvious that there isn’t as much of a market for westerns in Hollywood today as there was many decades ago. And it looks to stay that way, as “Appaloosa” is not the film that will give the genre the kick-start it needs.

When the town of Appaloosa has its marshal murdered, the town decides to bring in two peacekeepers, Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortenson). Their job is to stop the band of criminals that murdered the marshal, led by Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons). The pair quickly captures Bragg, but his incarceration becomes complicated when Virgil falls for the new girl in town, Ally French (Renée Zellweger).

Westerns have never had complex plots, and “Appaloosa” is no exception. But better westerns have gotten away with an open-ended story by telling the tale through superb acting, character development and artistic suspense. “Appaloosa” is too light on all such aspects.

Directed by Harris himself, the film fails to make use of many of his own acting talents, and by watching his cinematic work here, it would appear he’s missing a certain knack for direction.

Mortensen gives the best performance, and his resume proves he is a versatile actor. His work is effective, but he offers little more to the role. Most distracting however is Renée Zellweger. In exaggerating nearly every emotion, Zellweger delivers one of her career’s worst performances.

It’s possible the actors had little material to work with, but the more likely explanation is that the sub-par performances are brought to light by the weaknesses in typical western dialogue that has worked better in other hands.

By the third act, the film begins to redeem itself, establishing a more complex story, and even the actors start to shine. But the damage has already been done. With little affection for the audience to cling to, the ending seems empty and cliched.

The truth of the matter is that “Appaloosa” fails to revive the western film and really does nothing more than make supposedly great actors look bad. Obviously, there’s a reason people don’t make westerns anymore.