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Ed Harris steps behind the camera for the first time since his excellent biopic POLLACK for this screen adaptation of Robert B. Parker’s Western novel. This tale of honor and camaraderie is a traditional oater in its tone. While it features some flares of modern frankness, the story never feels like it steps outside of the 1880s era. Fans of Westerns will be reminded of films like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Audiences not in love with the genre will find an engaging character piece about two men who have formed a uniquely close bond under life and death situations.

Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) is a miner who writes his own rules for himself and his men in the New Mexico town of Appaloosa. After murdering the marshall, the town leaders turn to lawman-for-hire Virgil Cole (Harris) and his partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE). Cole’s deal is easy, you turn over the town to him and he’ll bring order to it. Before the ink on his contract dries, Cole has gunned down two of Bragg’s men for pissing on the floor of the saloon. The showdown of wills between Bragg and Cole soon begins. Then Allie French walks into town and fires buckshot right into Cole’s heart.

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Based on an Elmore Leonard story, this Oscar-nominated British short tells a solemn story of redemption. Ruben Vega (Francesco Quinn, TV’s INTO THE WEST) is a horse thief who has come to rethink his thieving and whoring ways. When he discovers a pretty woman named Sarah (Charlotte Asprey, TV’s ELIZABETH I) living alone in a shack in the desert, he becomes captivated with her story. Eleven years prior, she was kidnapped by Indians, tattooed on her chin and forced to live like a squaw. When her husband finally finds her, he is ashamed of her condition and hides her away from polite society. Ruben makes it his mission to bring Sarah out of her isolation and take back her life.

The film has a meandering tone that isn’t uncommon to the Western genre, but robs the film narrative thrust. From the direction to the acting, the short goes for a simmering dramatic effect, which at times feels more theatrical than cinematic. The actors move like their striking a pose, not conjuring a performance. Moreover, despite its slow pacing, the story seems to make emotional leaps that ring false. I can’t comment on whether sections where cut from the original story, but director Daniel Barber and screenwriter Joe Shrapnel never make us believe in the relationship between Ruben and Sarah. She goes from guarded and removed to trusting and vulnerable too quickly.

Barber, with cinematographer Ben Davis and production designer Johnny Green, paints a cinematic landscape that is beautiful. This look, the pacing and the muted performances all come together to create a nice somber tone, which is right for the material, but also distances us from the characters. As a result, the movie techniques get in the way of the story. All this said the film isn’t a complete failure by any means. With all its problems, it held my interest, especially from its wonderful photography. Barber plays one note well for 35 minutes, but it leaves us wanting to hear the rest of the song.

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Recently nominated for two Academy Awards, this tale of the end of the life of the famed outlaw Jesse James is in the mode of Terrence Malick crossed with Robert Altman’s MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER. Based on Ron Hansen’s novel, the film is actually about Robert Ford, who has a young man obsessed with James that eventually shot his hero in the back. In turn, the story is about the motivations of an assassin, which brings to mind other real life killers like John Lennon murderer Mark David Chapman or would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr. The contemplative true-life story is the best straight Western in decades.

The story begins with Jesse James (Brad Pitt, 12 MONKEYS) bringing together a new gang to rob a train. It’s to be the last job for his brother Frank (Sam Shepard, THE NOTEBOOK). Robert Ford (Casey Affleck, GERRY) pushes to be more involved in the job, but no one takes him seriously. After the job, Jesse will keep Robert behind to move furniture. Back at his house, his brother Charley (Sam Rockwell, THE GREEN MILE) and Jesse’s cousin Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner, DAHMER) kid Robert about his collection of Jesse James memorabilia. As Jesse gets more and more paranoid of his gang backstabbing him for the reward money on his head, he pays a visit to Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt, TV’s THE 4400) and Charley and Wood get caught in the middle of a feud between Wood and ladies’ man Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS).

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This stark Western reminded me of the great Robert Altman film MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER. Set during winter in a gold rush Sierra Nevada town, the citizens are in limbo until the thaw of spring arrives. This idle time in the town of Kingdom Come is the perfect breeding ground for introspection, regret and trouble. Three strangers will arrive that will shake the town’s owner Daniel Dillon to his core, because his soul is ripe for regret and self-destruction.

Dillon (Peter Mullan, MY NAME IS JOE) is living with a dark secret; a regret so strong that it taints everything he has done since. He is strong willed and often brutal, but there is a twisted humanity to his actions sometimes. For he’ll have a man savagely horsewhipped, just so the town won’t lynch him. As most everyone in town does, he visits the brothel, where he has taken claim to the madam Lucia (Milla Jovovich, THE FIFTH ELEMENT). Then arrive the strangers. Donald Dalglish (Wes Bentley, AMERICAN BEAUTY) is a surveyor for the railroad company. His decision on where to lay tracks will determine whether the town lives or dies. It’s a great deal of power to have for a young ambitious man, which certainly does not sit well with the prideful Dillon. However, this attentions will soon focus on the two other strangers — Elena Burn (Nastassja Kinski, PARIS, TEXAS), a woman dying of TB, and her pretty blonde daughter Hope (Sarah Polley, THE SWEET HEREAFTER). They represent Dillon’s past coming back to haunt him.

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WALK THE LINE director James Mangold does with 3:10 TO YUMA what all good remakes do — use the original’s strengths as a basis while fleshing out the weak moments. The 1957 original is a minor Western classic. However, while not perfect, the remake is a superior film. This is done by giving more depth and sublty to the characters and pumping up the excitement level in good ways. The addition of two of today’s premiere actors — Russell Crowe and Christian Bale — as well as a star making performance by Ben Foster, does not hurt either.

Dan Evans (Bale, BATMAN BEGINS) lost a leg in the Civil War. Now he’s struggling to keep food on the table and pay off his debts. His son William (Logan Lerman, THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT) resents the fact that his father doesn’t charge after the men sent to burn down their barn. One day while tending the cows, they witness ruthless outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe, CINDERELLA MAN), along with his bloodthirsty sidekick Charlie Prince (Ben Foster, BANG, BANG, YOU’RE DEAD), use their cattle as a blockade in a robbery of the stagecoach. After Wade and his gang leave Evans and his sons without horses, they help the injured stagecoach driver Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda, EASY RIDER) and end up finding their horses on the road to town where Wade promised they would be. Desperate for money, Evans helps capture Wade and joins railroad manager Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts, A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD), Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk, I, ROBOT) and hired thug Tucker (Kevin Durand, WILD HOGS) on a mission to deliver Wade to the 3:10 train to Yuma.

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This minor Western classic has a similar vibe to another famed Western, HIGH NOON. One man stands against the urging of everyone to do what is right. The chief difference between this film and the Gary Cooper classic is the presence of the charming killer played by Glenn Ford.

Dan Evans (Van Heflin, SHANE) is a rancher whose farm is suffering under a two-year draught. His wife Alice (Leora Dana, POLLYANNA) worries that they won’t survive the year in the desert. One day with his two sons, Dan finds outlaw Ben Wade (Ford, THE BIG HEAT) using his cattle as a blockade in a stagecoach robbery. Later Dan reluctantly lures Wade into capture and aids the stage line owner Mr. Butterfield (Robert Emhardt, KID GALAHAD) in taking the bandit to Contention City to put him on the 3:10 train to Yuma.

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This mystical, satirical Western is like if Buñuel, Fellini and Mel Brooks made THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY for the arthouse and grindhouse, simultaneously. Every now and than you see a film so original that it’s more than just something that you’ve never seen before, it’s something that changes the way you think about film. This is one of those rare films. Alejandro Jodorowsky is a master filmmaker, who is like many of the great modern filmmakers, combining elements of cinema that have come before in a way that it makes something revolutionarily new and refreshing. This is post-modern cinema at its best, strangest and most spiritual.

El Topo (Jodorowsky) is a black clad rider, who tells his six-year-old naked son that the boy is now a man and he should symbolically burry his first toy and a picture of his mother in the desert. They ride into a town where the people have been slaughtered by outlaws. While avenging the deaths, he meets a woman he names Mara (Mara Lorenzio), who will urge him to make morally questionable decisions, which lead to his redemption in an underground community of deformed people where he meets a little woman (Jacqueline Luis), who changes his life.

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Mixing genres can sometimes revitalize both genres in the end. Cowboys and vampires is not a bad idea, but executed poorly and it could be a joke. Adding the gang metaphor to the mix as well, NEAR DARK handles the tone fine, but is a near miss in most other departments.

Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar, TV’s HEROES) is a cowboy who picks up the pretty stranger Mae (Jenny Wright, TWISTER) one night. He thinks she’s different from all the girls of his small Texas town, which is true because she’s a member of a roaming gang of vampires. And when Adrian wants to neck with her right before dawn, he’ll get bit, turning him into a creature of the night. Now Caleb has a choice — get his head lobbed off or join the gang. However, to join the gang, he has to kill and drink his victim’s blood. The other gang members, which include leader Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen, THE RIGHT STUFF), wild Severen (Bill Paxton, FRAILTY), punked out female Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein, ALIENS) and loose canon kid Homer (Joshua Miller, RIVER’S EDGE), don’t think Caleb is cut out for the immoral, immortal life. As Caleb struggles with the draw of the gang, his father Loy (Tim Thornerson, WHO’S HARRY CRUMB?) and little sister Sarah (Marcie Leeds, BEACHES) go on the road searching for him.

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THE PROPOSITION is a dirty, filthy, bloody Western set in the wilds of the Australian outback. Outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) is captured by the new lawman Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone, SEXY BEAST) and given a proposition — kill his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) by Christmas and he will spare his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson, TV’s MCLEOD’S DAUGHTERS) from the hangman’s noose.

As Charlie heads out on his bloody mission, we begin to see how difficult and demanding Capt. Stanley’s job is. He wants to civilize the outback, living his own life with his prim and proper wife, Martha (Emily Watson, BREAKING THE WAVES), like he never left England. However, the harsh climate and bitter conflict between the native Aborigines and the white settlers make civilization near impossible. Capt. Stanley isn’t a brutal colonialist, which we see clearly when he has to deal with the harsh request of the town’s richest citizen Eden Fletcher (David Wenham, LORD OF THE RINGS). In the wild, looking for his brother, Charlie runs upon grizzled and racist bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN), who is also looking for Arthur.

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Like many Westerns, RIDE LONESOME follows a man on a mission. Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott, THE TALL T) is a bounty hunter, who has captured murderer Billy John (James Best, TV’s THE DUKES OF HAZZARD) with the intention to take him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. At a homestead in the desert, Brigade meets up with outlaws Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts, TV’s BONANZA) and Whit (James Coburn, CHARADE), who intend on killing Brigade so they can take Billy John in and receive amnesty. The beautiful Mrs. Lane (Karen Steele, MARTY) is alone on the farm after her husband ventured out to round up missing livestock and never came back.

As time goes by, the group will not only have to contend with pissed off Indians, but Billy’s brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY) is on his way to save his younger sibling. But with Frank on his tail, why does Brigade seem to be in no rush to arrive in Santa Cruz?

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