Actor Ed Harris returns to the director's chair - following his critically acclaimed debut with Pollock (2000) - in what is arguably the best out-and-out western since Kevin Costner's Open Range in 2003. Harris also co-stars with Viggo Mortensen as the friends and fellow peacekeepers, hired by the town council of Appaloosa to bring to justice a crooked ranch boss (Jeremy Irons), who has gunned down their marshal. Renée Zellweger rounds off a starry cast, playing a widow new to town, whose relationship with Harris has consequences for the two men's mission. In terms of plot, Appaloosa may sound like pretty standard western fare. But there is a quirky, down-to-earth feel about its dialogue, and none of the characters behave in quite the way a movie audience might expect. Added to that is the marvellously understated interplay between the two lead actors that recalls such classic Old West partnerships as Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.