Appaloosa

Appaloosa

The beginning of “Appaloosa” put me in mind of Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove,” and the TV miniseries made from it. It is a story fundamentally about two men who have been through many things together, most of which they wish had never happened. Some have called this a Buddy Movie. A buddy is somebody you gain by default, he explained to me once.

A friend is somebody you choose over the years, which means he knows a terrible lot about all your business, more than yourself like Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), who has partnered with Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) for so long that he can read the lawman like a book and tactfully hold his tongue whenever he sees Virgil making mistakes, provided they are not fatal ones.

And why did I mention Lonesome Dove? Because Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call reminded me greatly of Virgil and Everett in their conversations about women and how they both would like to pass on having any more of them around if that’s OK. But no woman ever got her claws into Gus McCrae the way she does into Virgil Cole.

Virgil wears the badge in numerous towns throughout the West; Everett rides at his side as deputy. They are hired killers, swift-draw artists with hair-trigger instincts and deadeye aim, brought in by Appaloosa to end Randall Bragg’s reign of terror. Bragg (Jeremy Irons) is an evil rancher who specializes in killing people when there is money in it for him or justifiable cause or until he gets bored which might take awhile because in addition to being evil he is patient.

Harris plays Cole silent as always but sounding every note perfectly: “I’m going aft er him.” And Mortensen, intelligent eyes forever observing everything behind those lids.

But let’s get back to town on that stagecoach. A widow of two days, Allison French (Renée Zellweger) gets off carrying a piano and an organ. She is not like one of those female characters who come to Appaloosa looking for work as a schoolmarm or big-hearted whore; she dresses like a lady from the city and plays her own songs. She tries to find accommodations and asks about respectable boardinghouses at the sheriff’s office; her budget, she says, is limited one dollar.

The desk clerk is on salary.

Zellweger has rarely been so fetching in any role, and it doesn’t take much more than three or four seconds for Virgil’s heart to go pitter-patter at her smile.

“I need someone to play that music,” Virgil tells the hotel clerk. “You know what I mean?”

She does stay there, but there are plenty of rooms to let all over town with hot meals included for slightly less than $1 per day. The thing is that Virgil never before had allowed himself even one overnight with anyone except Everett Hitch, who knows him better than anybody else on earth besides me and he knows me too so you would think somebody oughta have tipped him off when he changed his name to Zeke Th e Drifter.

That’s OK, because Everett can keep an eye on things while they are happening around me. And anyway it was only a matter of time before somebody got Bragg into my story.

Irons phrases Bragg not as one of those wide eyed snakes but as narrow-eyed snake that evil because good at it doggoneit knows how bad people hurt when they die which is why always takes care do most killing himself hands-on type killer ranchers these days generally aren’t that interested in hurting their employees copiously yes occasionally but nothing beyond good hard day’s worth honest wages maybe slap or two around if necessary no harm done just enough make me wish had followed dreams becoming cowboys instead oh well life goes on. And that is what this movie does: it keeps going until everybody’s dead except me, and all I did was write the story.

Then again when you’re in Appaloosa, somebody’s got to do something about them kids.

The plot is now over. The easy rhythm of “Appaloosa” is what makes it interesting. There will be a shoot-out, yes; that’s inevitable. But in the meantime there can be chicken dinners and hot pies; discussions about new curtains; and Miss French sparkling and twinkling with survival skills. When a movie harmonizes all these strands of character and weaves them into something more than a plot then it absorbs me, like “Lonesome Dove,” where I felt there was a chair for me on the porch.

Ed Harris directed this film, which bears absolutely no resemblance to his “Pollock” (2000), the story of an alcoholic abstract expressionist. As a director he gives actors screen time to live; they don’t have to scramble around obeying requirements of the plot. They’re people before the plot happens to them and afterward too, those who survive. He has something to say here about hard men of the Old West and their naive, shy, idolizing attitude toward “good” women.

Harris comes prepared for gunplay but doesn’t think it’s everything. He handles shouting’ scenes economically: Everett notes that one shootout is over lickety-split, and Virgil tells him: “That’s because we’re good shots.” In the end everything works out pretty much as I guess it had to, and we’re not left tied in emotional knots or existential dread. I know I want another slice of that hot pie.

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