Appaloosa opens with the town marshal shot at the hands of a greedy outlaw, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), in front of the gangs’ house outside of town. In rides Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) to clean up the town. What do they need? First, to get paid, of course—but second, our lawmen cross over from the nineteenth century into ours: “We need laws…a lot of laws to make it all legal.” Virgil Cole is Nixonian and Bushian: If the marshal does it, it’s not illegal. The town council gladly hands over its civil liberties right as some drunken ruffians saunter into the saloon and draws their guns. Of course, Cole and Everett take them down like Wild West Jason Bournes.
The movie, however, doesn’t take the 3:10 to Yuma train to Political Parable. It becomes a quiet character study about the bond between the two men—why they do what they do, and more importantly, why they’ve been together so long with undying loyalty. Their sheriff/deputy act triangulates when Mrs. Allison French steps off the train and into their lives, really, for no reason at all. You can see where it goes from here.
The most impressive aspect of Ed Harris’ direction is that he’s willing to give his actors a lot of space. He and Mortenson have several mysterious, unspoken understandings that are truly unspoken—not in that typical Hollywood way, where buddies trade wacky banter and then nod at each other. Virgil and Everett don’t say a lot to each other, which allows the actors the space to develop their characters subtlely—with postures, tiny gestures, the way Mortenson peers through the shade of his hat when Harris asks him personal questions.
This gives their relationship a complexity—they are tough lawmen, but they’re funny with each other, like when Everett grins at Virgil who complains about his new-found disdain for Emerson and his “obfuscating vocabulary.” Appaloosa hasn’t done well at the box office, of course, but it deserves to be seen. It’s a true literary Western, the kind they used to make.
