'Appaloosa' a good traditional Western

Director: Ed Harris

Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Rene Zellweger

The revival in good, old-fashioned Westerns continues with this conventional but entertaining shoot ‘em up yarn about the taking on of a town bully and the subsequent cleaning up of said town, the 'Appaloosa' of the title.

Harris plays hired gun – but only to the law – Virgil and Mortensen is his sidekick Everett who team up to rid the town of local bad guy, rancher Randall Bragg (Irons).

Complications arrive on the train in the shapely form of widder woman Allison (Zellweger, in film-stealing mode as usual) for whose affections our heroes are eventually locked in competition.

It’s the sort of throw-back cowboy yarn that John Wayne was doing all those years ago, and it has elements of many of the old Westerns … but it’s good to look at and it’s always good to have a Western showing somewhere.

Star Rating: 3/5