Appaloosa

There are elements of story that will always point to one specific genre into which the story fits, despite most stories fitting into multiple genres. Consider, for example, a little known Sean Connery film: Outland. Despite its obvious Sci-Fi surface story, it is also a "western" in the sense that Connery plays a "marshall" in a "frontier town" who has to run off or kill the "bad guys." Another example: The Man Who Would Be King, which fits nicely into period colonial piece not unlike Zulu, while still meeting all of the requirements for an adventure story.

In contrast, Appaloosa is purely a western, a REAL western--if one can use that term with impugnity. There are clearly BAD guys and GOOD guys. One of the good guys appears to see things with just that sort of clarity of distinction, while the other has too much "feeling" to be truly, unequivocally good (in fact, he admits at one point to having killed outside the law); and we suspect that side of him from the beginning. The bad guys are indeed truly bad, from their bad fashion through their bad behavior and bad speech all the way to their bad teeth. The environment is dusty, windy, dry . . . unforgiving. Interestingly, the two most prominent women in the story--a widow from St. Louis and a local whore--end with character that is the opposite of their characters.

This is my immediate (in the literal sense of the word: little or no mediation, meditative reflection) reaction to the movie. I will see it again. It is one of those kinds of films.