Tonight, 13-14 September, 2025, I watched the 2008 movie, Appaloosa, starring Ed Harris as Virgil Cole and Viggo Mortensen as Everett Hitch, two lawmen slash gunmen for hire. They set up shop as city marshalls in a small town named Appaloosa – at the request of the city council. Virgil falls for a newcomer, the widow Allison French (Renee Zellwegger). The widow is at two different points in the movie described as a woman who needs to be with a man, and preferrably a man who is top dog. Everett’s description – to Virgil, who sought out his opinion– is subtle and shaded. But the town’s shady lady for whom Everett has a soft spot, describes Allie explicitly to Everett, and points out to him that the reason Allie is so sweet to him is because he is her backup top dog.
The movie is about people running true to form, being what they are and cannot escape being. Which is curious in that I just watched the Devil’s Own two nights ago. Again, about people being shaped by their thrown-ness (see Kierkegaard) and running inexorably true to form. Appaloosa resonated with me in that sense, because it’s largely how I see people, me included. It’s obvious that Virgil once saw the world that way, but he is at first disabused of this skeptical outlook by falling in love for the first time. And when with the prompting of Everett and experience, he partly comes back around, he finds he cannot completely let go of the romantic view, crossing both his fingers and his toes and hoping with suppressed doubts for the best.
Bad guys are confronted, doubts are dealt with, and in the end, Everett remains of the same opinion still. Virgil has found that he is not just a skeptic, but a romantic skeptic who is not willing to renounce love for philosophical purity’s sake.
I really liked the movie. There’s not much that Ed Harris does that I don’t like, but the movie’s theme really hit the spot for me. And Viggo Mortensen is so good. I consider it one of the better westerns I’ve seen in recent years. Critics have not rated it as highly. I’d give it 7.5 or more on the Imdb scale, but it was only rated 6.7. If you try to take the goodness and sweetness of life where you can get it, but still believe people will be what they are and have been, then you may find this clear-eyed look at human nature enjoyable.
copyright 2025 by Almost Lucid Geezer
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