This western holds true to its novel counterpart

The Western genre continues its resurgence with this drama from actor-director Ed Harris. Based on Robert B. Parker's novel, APPALOOSA follows a pair of lawmen (played by Harris and Viggo Mortensen) who must unite over their town's crisis as they're divided over their mutual love of a woman (Renée Zellweger).

Dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Parker’s novel, proves mostly engaging, especially as it relates to Virgil’s dedication to improving his vocabulary. He tries to drop impressive, polysyllabic words into his speech whenever he thinks of them; some attempts are more successful than others, but are invariably comic. When the well-spoken Bragg inhabits the cell right next to his desk, he’s put at a distinct linguistic disadvantage. Harris and Viggo Mortensen (who were electric together in "A History of Violence") play a pair of lawmen for hire in 1882 New Mexico. They speak in the kind of funny, staccato conversational rhythms that only people utterly used to each other can find. Virgil (Harris) is the leader of the pair, but Everett (Mortensen) often fills in his words for him. The two are comfortable in silence, keeping the peace in the town of Appaloosa by waiting together for trouble and, when necessary, shooting troublemakers. "It's what we do," says Everett. "It is, ain't it?" says Virgil.

And when a woman (Zellweger) comes between them, you're suddenly struck by how much more comfortable these two friends are with each other than with her (gay undertones perhaps? Brokeback Mountain, anyone?). She is the elegantly dressed Allison French, a mysterious widow who plays the piano (none too well), and who arrives in town with only a dollar to her name. Allie, as she likes to be called, sets her sights on Virgil, but she's hardly exclusive. Poor Virgil is so tickled by her he doesn't know what to think (Harris' goofily moonstruck grin is a masterpiece) and soon she's planning their home together, with Virgil and Everett looking comically mystified by curtain swatches (where she soon tries to seduce Everett). In the scene, Allie tries to kiss Everett, but is rebuffed. "You're with Virgil," he tells her simply. "So am I." But this movie is a Western, even as it disguises itself as a period comedy, so there's of course a ruthless rancher (Jeremy Irons, eyebrows raised) and his band of outlaws who ride into town half-obscured by the dust on the road. As Virgil and Everett try to bring them to justice, their stories and Allie's intertwine in a tale of shifting loyalties, murder and revenge.

Harris, in only his second film as director (his first was the 2000 artist biopic "Pollock"), displays a quiet, unshowy confidence and a genuine fondness for the genre, capturing the horses and guns and saloon glasses in a soft, almost-sundown light. Though "Appaloosa" doesn't have the excitement of "3:10 to Yuma" (the best of the recent Westerns), it's an appealing movie that gets under your skin, in its low-key way. Notice how, by the end of the movie, we know everybody in the town; even the characters with barely any lines (like an Irish hotel maid) seem to have etched their own stories. And there's a real joy in watching Harris and Mortensen connect, in the way their characters' friendship is conveyed by tiny nods (there's one at the end, from Everett, that speaks volumes) and sentences as spare and unadorned as the town's dirt roads. This inticing western gets a 4 on my "Go See" scale, with a "Yee-Haw!" on the end.