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In Reply to: RE: "Apaloosa": Leathery cowboys and all women are whores ...... posted by mr grits on October 04, 2008 at 19:06:44
..one thing I've decided is that Mortensen is the most exciting, most charismatic actor working today. His posture in the final shootout with Jeremy Irons is brilliant and in itself worth the entire cost of admission.
I like Harris' acting work very much too, over the years, but his direction of this film is uneven. Most of the supporting actors including Irons have no great demands made of them. Neither do they rise of their own accord.
Beautiful scenery, occasionally inventive photography and editing. I liked the full screen facial shots. The overall look is too clean-cut for the time and the sweaty, dusty New Mexico background.
Mortensen is the best thing in it. As I said, he alone raises the film to see-it-again status. And I'm sure in so doing, I'll see more in the whole film to like.
I love a western.
Follow Ups:
simplicity.
Ed is a poor director, period. This stricly is by the numbers boring directing.
And Ed is NO leading actor, either. He certainly can't carry a film. He looks just like what he always has: an aging high school football star.
Viggo I also elevated to a high status after that gripping portrayal as the Russian hit man in "Eastern Promises." But.... in this film, he does nothing more memorable than polish his shotgun barrel, endlessly. No good lines, no memorable anything except for the stance in the final shootout.
Jeremy Irons, rather unbelievably, showed some great skill with a rifle in the beginning and then, in a critical scene, couldn't hit a standing target? But I'm being unfair in analyzing this film.
It's a good, entertaining popcorn film, no more.
The very limited "Open Range" was superior because of the rapport between its principals, even though I'm no fan of either one of them.
... I felt that Mortensen did well enough with little through most of the film. He is such a magnetic figure. When I saw his intensity and his physical posture in that endgame scene with Irons it was delicious to watch. He had studied, prepared himself for the part. He exuded power and certainty.
Open Range was as romantic a picture but far more harmonious and substantial beginning to end. A better picture. The climactic gunfight was "right". When you decide to face a man to kill him, that's what you do, you don't talk it over with him first. You put yourself into the most favorable position and do it, first.
I also think of Paul Newman in ...Judge Roy Bean. When he knew the assassin was in town, he laid in the loft and blew that big 'ol funny hole in his back.
There's that great scene in Unforgiven where Gene Hackman schools Saul Rubinek on how a gunfight unfolds. Lots of bullets miss their intended targets for lots of good reasons when you consider to take another man's life.
Of course this is all make-believe stuff. Great fun to argue about the dynamics of movie gunslinging.
My grandaddy told me about witnessing a gunfight when he was just a kid. He said the air was so charged with tension and fear he shit his pants.
"There's that great scene in Unforgiven where Gene Hackman schools Saul Rubinek on how a gunfight unfolds. Lots of bullets miss their intended targets for lots of good reasons when you consider to take another man's life."
Get the deluxe edition of Tombstone, which contains factual information about the fight, including Wyatt Earps diagrams shortly before his death about where the gunfighters were, and the routes they took during the fight. The written material recites how many bullets were shot, and how so few bullets actually landed in flesh, despite the fact that the gunfighers shot while within feet of each other. Which makes the fight sequence in Open Range appear more realistic than any other Western fight scene that comes to mind.
Two more good westerns: Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, the ones that came out close together in the '90s. I need to see these again soon.
I actually thought Mortensen played a far more interesting character than did Harris. In general, I do like Ed Harris in the movies . . .
Zwellweger was almost nauseating and almost derailed the movie (I don't care whether the movie was true to the book or not, I only saw the movie). Too pouty, whiney, annoying . . .
The most interesting third was the middle third, which began by transporting the convicted man by train. In fact, I wish that had just expanded on the middle third for an entire feature film.
I did appreciate the "realistic" gunfights . . . usually it only takes one-bullet-per-participate.
2 and 3/4 stars
as her makeup was devoid of "glamor". And, yes, Viggo still lacked the real weatherbeating he should have sported. It was nice to see Lance Henriksen back on the big screen.
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