Building them up or tearing them down in 5 minutes...ish
I actually got a chance to watch Appaloosa after all and while I don't have time to write a full review I thought I should resurrect the Shotgun Critic for this film. Ed Harris has directed a film that is better placed in the 1950s canon of Westerns as we find it inspired mostly Rio Bravo and Shane in it's romantic, moral notions. But in cinema today it feels like a film with no edge.
Appaloosa takes an odd comic tone throughout from its bizarre choices in music, farcical love entanglements (with Renee Zellweger of all people), and its mocking characterisation of Harris' otherwise steely sheriff Virgil Cole. There is definitely some hint of post-Brokeback homoerotic curiousity in Cole's relationship with his partner in law-keeping Everett Hitch played by Viggo Mortensen. In fact Mortensen once again is standout in this film as the professional gunslinger who chooses to be a lawman and is happy to take the take backseat to partner Cole despite being smarter and possibly quicker. No real climatic gunfight to speak of though it certainly ends with a smoking gun.
No much for anyone other than a Western aficionado and even then it's a stretch. The film mostly lands pretty flat beyond the cool of Virgil Cole's posturing in the face of many guns possessed by men who aren't really prepared to die. I did however love a moment after the film's one good showdown when Everett Hitch notes that it was over faster than normal to which Cole replies" "That's cos everyone knew how to shoot." Great Western observation in an otherwise bland movie.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Shotgun Critic #4: Appaloosa
Monday, February 23, 2009
DVD: Buffalo Soldiers
Director: Gregor Jordan
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Anna Paquin
Year made: 2001
Peace is hell
Once again we have a film depicting American soldiers running amok with cheerful disregard for the job they are hired to do. Germany 1989: the Berlin Wall is about to fall, crumbling like the discipline of the US troops stationed there...
Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers plays like a traditional black comedy with the added zest of political satire. Phoenix is company clerk Ray Elwood with the self-invented job of facilitating the barrack’s drug habit while partaking in whatever wheeler dealing on the side he can manage to maintain the lifestyle he has forged for himself in the army.
When new sergeant Robert Lee (Scott Glenn) arrives, things get trickier as Elwood simultaneously tries to date Lee’s daughter and slip one last big score under his nose. The ensuing story strays from the convictions of its creators, leaving you with the sense that they lost sight of their core and followed something a little less rebellious and a little more conventionally subversive.
One might have hoped for a commentary from the director on a smaller film like this but no such luck. The Sundance Channel’s ‘Anatomy Of A Scene’ piece, while focusing on the rampaging tank scene, provides more than enough detail about the production to entertain the grey matter. It includes contributions from key collaborators and makes up for the disappointing behind-the-scenes featurette.
Film: 3 stars
Extras: 2 stars
Special features:
• Sundance ‘Anatomy Of A Scene’ featurette (20 mins)
• ‘Buffalo Soldiers: Behind The Scenes’ featurette (5 mins)
If you like this why not try...
Catch-22
Black comedy and war go together like Bush and war: Catch-22 is the classic example.
This review first appeared in DVD Review #63
