Appaloosa Review, by Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter

If actor-director doesn't point the way to a modern approach to the genre in "Appaloosa," he has nonetheless made a fine dramatic comedy with fresh characters, witty dialogue and a keen interest in how relationships must have developed among frontier folks, tyrannical ranchers, no-nonsense lawmen and -- oh, yes -- the complicated women on that frontier. If Warner Bros. isn't careful, the studio, which inherited "Appaloosa" in the corporate dismantling of New Line, may have a hit on its hand. It will take marketing though since, after all, it is a Western.

The initial scenes feel familiar. Bragg (Jeremy Iron), a merciless rancher, guns down a sheriff and two deputies, plunging a small New Mexico town, circa 1882, into lawlessness. Town leaders (British actor Timothy Sprall among them giving yet another inimitable performance) beseech lawmen-for-hire, the tight-to-the-vest Virgil (Harris) and his longtime and most knowing partner Everett (Viggo Mortensen) to clean up their town.

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