Appaloosa

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and Ed Harris has returned to the director’s chair after eight years, to take Clint Eastwood’s opinion that the western is the American heritage film very seriously. Harris here crafts a flawed movie that’s commendably old-fashioned and devoid of irony or academic intent. Drawing heavily from the mythos of Wyatt Earp, the plot is the old west standard of a marshall (Harris) and his deputy (Mortensen) arriving in a lawless town to rid the place of a not so jolly rancher (a badly accented Jeremy Irons). Of course, a nuisance of a woman (Zellweger) comes between them, and there are bar room brawls and shootings: so far, so cliché. Yet the film, for all its dated touches and lack of formal daring, is made with a formidable passion. There’s also a palpable War On Terror subtext, and the cast are clearly relishing every minute of it. [Michael Gillespie]