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BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Appaloosa explodes out of the starting gate, threatens to pull up lame but turns into a winner by a nose. Ed Harris as gun-for-hire Virgil Cole commands the eye from his first appearance on screen, while Viggo Mortensen as Everett Hitch rivets the ear from his first words as the disciple to this Wild West savior.

In 1882, the citizens of the tiny town of Appaloosa in the New Mexico Territory “want their town back” from the nefarious killer Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons). Cole and Hitch appear to be their best hope, since they have had more than a dozen years experience “keeping the peace.”

Although there isn’t much they haven’t been able to handle with their pistols and twelve-gauge, Cole and Hitch are determined to try the lawful way to justice. Buttoning up the town “tighter than a nun’s corset,” Cole lets Bragg know that anybody foolish enough to draw a gun on Cole after the man’s been “warned,” is going to be run out of town feet first.

Waiting on a judge to conduct the trial and a man willing to tell the truth about what he saw Bragg do, Cole and Hitch keep their vigil as a team that almost draws breath at the same time—until the breathtaking moment when she steps off the coach.

Of all the towns on all the prairies in all the country, Allison French (Renee Zellweger) had to step into Cole’s. Before Allie, Cole’s experience with the fair sex was limited to prostitutes and such. From the moment his flinty eyes take her in, Cole is a goner. Pretty soon the perpetual cat-swallowed-the-canary look on her face has a reason. She and Cole get so cozy they’re looking to set up housekeeping on the edge of town.

Everett tries the gallant thing. If he’s jealous, or threatened by Allie, he doesn’t let it show beyond some ill-advised jokes at her expense, which provoke a swift rebuke from Cole. It doesn’t take much time before practically everyone besides Cole can see that Allie is a sashaying coward who won’t think twice of picking up with whoever is the “boss stallion” at the time.

As the natural law usually goes in the west, Cole’s preoccupation with Allie will cause a crisis that will test the depth and strength of the bond Cole and Hitch have forged.

As an actor, director, and co-writer (adaptation of a Robert B. Parker novel), Harris proves how simpatico he is to this straight-shooter who goes a bit soft just when the stakes are at their highest. But it is Mortensen who remains standing at the film’s high noon, stealing Harris’s thunder with a characterization evoking Jimmy Stewart at his deceptively laid-back, but coiled-to-strike, best.

Look for a star turn in a bit part from Harris’s father as the trial judge. A New Line Cinema release, rated R for violence, brief nudity.

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