Mortenson as Frued.

An antiseptic departure for shock jock David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method is a psychological tug of war between the father of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortenson), and his disciple Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) over the mind and sex of an overwrought mental patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a mad Russian with a craving for spanking. Whacking her on her naked bottom must have worked. She ended up, years later, analyzing patients of her own. Too bad she didn’t also analyze this movie. It would have saved so much wasted time.

A grim 1912 period piece set in a mental clinic in Vienna at the dawn of 20th century enlightenment, the movie flirts with the peculiar relationship between novice Jung and mentor Freud while they both flirt with the same patient, but aside from Ms. Knightley’s lurid whupping without her panties on, nothing ever happens. The “dangerous method” in the title refers to the experiment by both analysts to radically treat the same female patient by taking her to bed. Not very scientific, but very, very talky. The textbook talk is more layered than the plot. The two doctors discuss their opposing theories in such a drawn-out series of academic letters between Austria and Switzerland that by the time they’re finished, the patient has developed an abstract hypothesis of her own. By the time they get around to testing their primal interest in Sabina between the uncomfortable-looking starched cotton sheets, they (as well as esteemed screenwriter Christopher Hampton) might be unhinged to discover their audience is snoring. Mr. Hampton adapted the script from his own stage play The Talking Cure, and it shows. Veteran Polish cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, who shoots all of Mr. Cronenberg’s films, gives everything the refined sheen of polyurethaned mahogany.

Considering herself vile, filthy and corrupt because she lusts for humiliation, Sabina listens to the inner voices of angels, then shrieks, shakes and stutters her way into a nervous fit while she squishes her food between her fingers in what I assume Ms. Knightley considers great acting. At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, everyone was twittering furiously about her titillating spanking scenes, but they hardly made up for the huge lapses of tedium between smacks. As Freud, who believes the basis of all insanity is sexual repression, and Jung, who is monogamous and resistant to such extremist views, the miscast male stars are bland as dust and look like a box of Smith Brothers cough drops.

In his two previous collaborations with Mr. Cronenberg, Mr. Mortenson’s full-frontal wrestling scene in Eastern Promises and twisted gang killer-turned-suburbanite in A History of Violence offered more challenges than anything in the buttoned-up role of Freud, and after Mr. Fassbender’s brutally punishing role as IRA hunger-strike-martyr Bobby Sands in Hunger and his rollicking nudity as a sex addict in Shame, I can’t imagine what attracted these two megahunks to such a bore.

rreed@observer.com

A DANGEROUS METHOD

Running Time 93 minutes

WRITTEN BY Christopher Hampton

DIRECTED BY David Cronenberg

STARRING Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen

2/4

Old Dogs

What's the story: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! John Travolta and Robin Williams star as a couple of bachelors forced to attempt child rearing in Old Dogs, which might earn the distinction of "worst movie of the year." Critics don't just hate Walt Becker's latest (the man behind the reviled Wild Hogs) they're out for blood. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum calls the film "interminable;" Roger Ebert thinks it's "stupefyingly dimwitted;" and, in one case... well, you should read what HitFix's Drew McWeeney wrote about the film yourself. Though considering he titles his review, "Is it possible to hate a film more than Old Dogs?," you probably have some idea about his thoughts. On the bright side, if you're looking to punish your family after Thanksgiving dinner, you now have a suggestion.

Who should see it: Billy Crystal, who must be wondering why he's not in this thing.

The Road

What's the story: Since nothing says "Happy Thanksgiving" like cannibalism, John Hillcoat's (The Proposition) long-delayed adaptation of The Road, Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, finally hits theaters this weekend. Scheduled to come out last November and delayed because of poor buzz and the financial woes of The Weinstein Company, the biggest surprise about The Road just might be that it's one of the best movies of the year. In his sparkling review, the notoriously picky Rex Reed calls it a "magnificent picture" and especially singles out Viggo Mortensen ("there seems to be no end to [his] talents"). Sounds good! And, don't worry: if your mom complains about not wanting to see a movie about the end of the world on Thanksgiving, remind her that The Road was also an Oprah Book Club choice.

Who should see it: Roland Emmerich.

Ninja Assassin

What's the story: Are we the only ones who thought something as benign and derivative as Ninja Assassin had to be based on a comic book or video game? That it's not is both comforting and scary; at least Hollywood is trying to create some original blockbusters, but this is what they come up with? Produced by the Wachowski Brothers (remember when that meant something?) and directed by their surrogate (James McTiegue, V for Vendetta), Ninja Assassin is one of those rare movies that tells you everything you need to know about its plot in the title. It's probably a better time than Old Dogs, but that's not saying much.

Who should see it: Neo.

The Princess and The Frog

What's the story: Showing on only two theaters (the Ziegfeld in New York, Disney's El Capitan Theater in Hollywood) and with ticket prices reaching $50 dollars, you'd probably be wise to wait for The Princess and The Frog's nationwide release on December 11. But for those of you who are just too excited to see the first traditionally animated Disney film since 2004 (and the first one centering on a princess in almost 15 years), you still might get your moneys worth. Early word on the racially harmonized musical cartoon—the Princess of the title is the first African American in Disney's history—is that it's outstanding; a worthy entry into both the classic animation wing of Disney and a clear competitor with Pixar's Up for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Oh, and did we mention that Oprah voices one of the characters? Buy those advanced tickets now!

Who should see it: Sleeping Beauty

Also opening this weekend: Zac Efron acts in Me and Orson Welles; and everyone can find out about The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.

Welcome to the apocalypse. In The Road, the eagerly awaited movie version of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, the end of the world is no longer on its way. It’s already here, bringing misery, desperation, death and no hope for the future. Adapted by Joe Penhall and directed by Australia’s John Hillcoat, it is sad, bleak and unbearably depressing. It is also gripping, shattering and brilliant. Throughout the screening I attended, I heard people murmur “a masterpiece.” I reluctantly agree.

An unnamed cataclysm has destroyed the earth and erased almost every trace of humanity with biblical fury. The cause of this decimation is unspecified—volcanic activity, contagious viruses, nuclear war, a meteorite? But the result is a post-apocalyptic planet of scorched devastation. Across a landscape of ash-covered snow, a father and son called only The Man and The Boy (Viggo Mortensen and young newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) are somehow miraculously still alive and pushing a shopping cart on a wrenching journey to the sea. The movie, sparse and bleakly loyal to Mr. McCarthy’s prose, has the same narrative as the book—a grim chronicle of their horror, suffering and determination to survive. There are occasional respites—Robert Duvall as a half-blind old man they befriend in the forest, Guy Pearce as a fellow vagabond on the move, the ecstasy of long-forgotten taste when they discover an abandoned Coca-Cola—but more often they plod along in an existence that is pared to the bone, and it is the author’s poetic vision that must carry us through.

The Man once had a wife (played with terror and passion by Charlize Theron) with whom he debated the question of whether to end it all and save themselves and their son from the rape and cannibalism of wild gangs. In flashbacks, we see The Man cling to one last shred of optimism. “We will get out of this,” he says. But the wife eventually gives up, unable to last one more black, stormy winter of cold and starvation, and The Man is left with his son and only two bullets in his gun—one for each of them. Now, 10 years later, the days are gray as coffins, the crops long gone, cars and machines cracking with rust, farms and fields fallen to dust, the animals dead and the survivors either refugees looking for food and fuel or maniacs feasting on human flesh to stay alive. Dying would seem a luxury. As if their existence isn’t hopeless enough, there is also an earthquake that opens the ground and fells what remains of the barren trees. By the time they reach the sea, as dark and colorless as sewage, The Man is coughing up blood and The Boy is so ravaged with fever that you wonder not only how much more they can take, but how much more you can take.

And still, this is a magnificent picture—as unique and corrosive a view of 21st-century ruin as I have ever seen on the screen. The author has been quoted as saying, “In 100 years the human race won’t even be recognizable,” and now, in his vision of the aftermath of cataclysm, he sets out to prove it. The chillingly realistic art direction and the Oscar-worthy cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe are dauntingly faithful to the blighted global catastrophe described so carefully in the book. To configure charred spaces where buildings once stood and the strange beauty of gutted cities, The Road was shot in post–Hurricane Katrina locations in the Louisiana backwash, and barren sections of Pittsburgh in winter, where remnants of the region’s once flourishing steel mills and coal mines lent to the atmosphere of desolation. The movie creates a bleak space that manages to be both anonymous and oppressively intimate at the same time. High-impact technological graphics and computer-generated effects are gratefully missing. The dramatic tension and narrative suspense come from silences that speak louder than words and explosions, and from the raw and powerful performances. There seems to be no end to Viggo Mortensen’s talents. His portrait of a man driven by spirited parental love, whose last act on earth is to prepare his son for the courage to live without his protection, is so touching that … well, all I can say is, prepare to be emotionally hammered. Young Smit-McPhee, who was only 11 at the time of filming, matches Mr. Mortensen scene for scene with a tenderness and a strength I found inspiring. (The fact that he also looks a lot like Charlize Theron makes him doubly believable.) In the end, it is the little boy’s generosity and caring that invest the story with its last sense of humanity.

But that’s stretching it. Make no mistake, as Nixon used to say. The Road is not an uplifting, feel-good night at the movies. It is savagely unpleasant, but you will not forget its impact. Mixed reviews aside, I will not ponder the box office prospects of a film this daring and original. In a year of relentless trash, I can only shower it with praise for its fearless integrity in creating a work of art that is very valuable indeed.

rreed@observer.com

On the third floor of the Clearview Chelsea Cinemas on Monday, Nov. 16, soft-spoken actor (and poet/musician/artist/sex object) Viggo Mortensen admitted to the Transom that he had concerns over his role. “I was scared to death of the emotional toll,” said Mr. Mortensen, a rumored Oscar contender. “But once I got going and just trusted the boy who’s playing the son and we connected, it just took its own natural rhythm and went from there.”

Dapper in a double-breasted black suit and leather boots, Mr. Mortenson wore a heart-shaped charm pinned to his lapel—a prop from another project, he said. “It symbolizes love.” You don’t say!

Mr. Hillcoat, meanwhile, said that the runaway success Ethan and Joel Coen had with Mr. McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men in 2007 didn’t faze him. “If we had started thinking about things like Pulitzer Prizes and No Country for Old Men and all that, it would just throw you off,” he said.

Also there were author Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm author) and TV journalist Bryant Gumbel. “I’m on kind of a post-apocalyptic clip lately,” said Mr. Gumbel of his recent reading list, which did not include the McCarthy epic though he carried it around for a week. “I just finished reading The Last Babylon, finished One Second After, ordered Tales from the Wasteland,” he said.

It’s also safe to assume that Mr. Gumbel isn’t up to date with the latest on Bella and Edward Cullen, as he stared back blankly when queried whether he would be going to see the second movie in the Twilight vampire-lust series upon its release later this week. “I’m sorry,” the newsman said. “I liked Underworld; does that help?”

Monday: The Bachelorette

All the rose petals, candles, sky-diving, cringing hands-over-face-embarrassment and general buffoonery has led us to tonight, when our Bachelorette finally picks her man on the big finale. And yes, we are sort of un-ironically excited! Who will Jillian, former hot dog connoisseur and hot tub slut, choose? Will it be Ed, the beefy and terribly dressed Midwesterner who had, shall we say, some performance anxiety in the “fantasy suite,” or Kiptyn, who not only has the silliest name ever but is so Ken-doll perfect that he’s downright creepy? Our money is on the evil overlords at ABC to rig up a last-minute confession from our personal favorite, nerdy Reid/Chandler Bing, and make us think something shocking will happen. We’re guessing in the end, though, it will be same old snooze proposal with US Weekly announcing the happy couple’s breakup in six months time. Sigh. [ABC, 9 p.m.] 

Tuesday: Witness

Here’s a fun game we like to play: Which Harrison Ford is the hottest of all time? Is it Han Solo Ford? Indiana Jones Ford or Working Girl Ford? For our money, it’s steamy-almost-sex-with-an-Amish-lady Ford in the great 1985 Peter Weir film Witness. Mr. Ford plays a cop who has to hide out among the Amish and try and protect little Lukas Haas who witnessed (duh) a brutal murder that still makes us feel weird being in the Philadelphia train station to this day. He has an intense flirtation with Kelly McGillis, and learns to wear pants without zippers! This film boasts a heart-fluttering sponge bath, Viggo Mortensen as the best-looking mute Amish carpenter ever, and a death-by-grain scene that the Final Destination folks could only dream of. [AMC, 8:15]

Wednesday: I Survived a Japanese Game Show

When it comes to bad television, we realize we are part of the problem and not the solution (see Monday’s entry). But that being said, WTF is up with this I Survived a Japanese Game Show? According to ABC, 12 Americans went to Japan to compete in challenges with names like “Big Foot Bang Bang,” “Alien Took my Teddy Bear” and “Gopher Make You Crazy” while being led by host Rome Kanda, house mother Mama-San and Judge Bob. Tonight, the six remaining contestants apparently will be dressing up as cats for a milk relay rice and wear Velcro suits to throw themselves at a wall from a trampoline. Good lord. We … just don’t know what to say. [ABC, 9 p.m.]

Thursday: Control

Are you ready to feel all sorts of angsty and restless—kind of like the way you did when you were just a sulky teen, driving around parking lots and smoking cigarettes? Then you should absolutely settle in and watch Control, the beautiful and incredibly moving biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. Curtis was a troubled soul, committing suicide at age 23 while on the brink of superstardom. Sam Riley is spookily good as Curtis and pulls off a pretty convincing “Love Will Tear Us Apart” to boot. Samantha Morton plays wife Deborah Curtis (the screenplay is based on Ms. Curtis’ Touching From a Distance) and is amazing as always, but take a look at the pretty actress portraying Curtis’ mistress Annik Honoré, Alexandra Maria Lara. Ms. Lara and Mr. Riley got engaged earlier this year. See if you can catch the pair falling in love onscreen. [MOMaxe, 2:35 a.m.]

Friday:  Inside Man

Inside Man is Spike Lee’s 18th feature film and it's up there as being one of the more fun to watch. It’s a good old-fashioned bank heist flick, starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen (was this the movie that made everyone fall in love with him? We think so) and Jodie Foster. Though this film seems, at first glance, to be a departure for Mr. Lee, reconsider the blue skies over the Manhattan skyline, Mr. Washington’s quick-witted quips about life in the city and all those funny/uncomfortable jokes about post-911 racial profiling. It’s a zippy affair, tightly crafted and exciting. Plus, the hard-to-pronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor is in it, and who doesn’t love that guy? [BET, 1:30 p.m.]

Good

What's the story: This was supposed to be "the other Viggo Mortensen movie" in 2008, but with The Road sent to the hell of shifting release dates, Good has to suffice. There hasn't been a lot of heat surrounding the movie, but it really does look excellent ... so long as you're prepared for a morality tale centered on the Holocaust. Mr. Mortensen stars as a German professor who is asked to join "the party" in an effort to further his career. What harm could it do, right? As his pretty wife says, "Everyone looks so happy; anything that makes people happy can't be bad, can it?" Maybe she should ask Mr. Mortensen's friend, a Jewish therapist played by the forever underrated Jason Isaacs. Good asks powerful questions about compromise and loyalty, but chances are no one will see it. Eventually, though, you'll Netflix it, love it and bemoan the fact that you missed it in theaters.

Who should see it: People who aren't interested in seeing Tom Cruise play a Nazi.

Defiance

What's the story: Because one Holocaust movie wasn't enough, here comes Defiance. Ed Zwick's latest has all the earmarks of both a box office hit and an Oscar favorite. The trailer is heavy on action and spectacle, and the story of the Bielski brothers and their survival with over 1,000 other Jews in the woods of Nazi-occupied Poland is the type that usually tugs the heartstrings of awards voters. And yet, Defiance is being dumped on the last day of the year to qualify for the Oscars in an act of pantomime; even Paramount Vantage can't believe that this will garner one nomination. Still we wouldn't be surprised to see it become a moderate success once it gets a wide release in mid-January. It does star James Bond after all.

Who should see it: People who aren't interested in seeing Tom Cruise play a Nazi.

We spoke with Good director Vicente Amorim on the red carpet about the recent rash of films with a 1930's German theme, and whether or not he felt Mr. Mortensen was under any competition from other leading men in those movies--like, say, Valkyrie's Tom Cruise. (Good is one of four Oscar season movies that reference the Holocaust in some way: The Weinstein Company's The Reader starring Kate Winslet opens today; Valkyrie opens Dec. 26; and on New Year's Eve, Paramount Vantage releases Defiance, starring Daniel Craig.)

"Yeah," said Mr. Amorim, smiling and nodding. "Well... I do think it's good for all the movies because it'll show different aspects of the same reality--I mean, without making judgment values because I actually haven't seen any of the other films. And actually, when we started prepping this, we got called into a meeting into the office and people were saying, 'There are so many Holocaust movies being made!' and I said, 'Don't be ridiculous, of course not.' and then, ha-ha, of course there were."

We asked him if he understood why.

"It was in the zeitgeist. I think it has a lot to do with what was happening in this country before Election Day." He was wearing jeans and sneakers and kept shifting back and forth. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I mean it's never been completely forgotten, but i think it has a lot to do with what was happening in this country at the time."

So is his film a deliberate political statement?

"Absolutely. Every film is political."

Mr. Mortensen also dismissed the idea that there was a glut of Holocaust-themed films. "Most, if not all, of the other Holocaust movies are different in several ways," he said. Mr. Mortensen was wearing a tailored gray suit and had shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair. "One, they have a lot more money to promote their movies--some people have said, 'Jeez, you got a bad deal because you have to compete with all these movies from the same time period.' I say no because this movie's quite different."

Mr. Mortensen added: "There's no big heroic moment at the end. There's no big tragic moment at the end. There's no real villain. It's not about Hitler in general. You don't know where John Halder's goin' to go. You don't know what's going to happen to his family. And you don't know what's going to happen at the end--you're not off the hook."

He spoke very softly for the volume of the room and made slight, understated hand gestures. He took a deep breath. "I've spoken with people in other countries where [the film has] been shown and it's been interesting ... and they're not saying they don't like the movie but at a certain point they'll say, 'No, I'm not buyin it, I don't like it, you lost me there. …' And they're so strong when they're talking about it." He laughed and looked at us. "'Well, maybe,' I'll say, 'but it's unavoidable that you did relate.' People completely dismiss that! And its not like it's incredible, the turn of events, it's just uncomfortable. And I've talked with some people and they say, 'I wouldn't think i would go that far …'"

He tried to finish his sentence but his publicist cut him off.

But we digress. The Road had been slated to open in New York and Los Angeles November 14^th, putting it nicely in awards territory, but The Hollywood Reporter reports today that the film has been shifted till December, and might not even make it into 2008 altogether. We’ve been hearing that a lot of the big hitters for this year are still being worked on and apparently The Road still has a long way to go before it's completed. Executives are scheduled to meet today with producers (including Harvey Weinstein, who's been having a hellish season so far, not to mention costly) to see if they can make it happen. Fingers crossed!

The Matarese Circle takes place during the Cold War, and deals with the partnership of two rival agents-an American and a Soviet-who fight to save the world from mass destruction. You know, typical spy stuff. While there hasn't been any word yet on who would play opposite Mr. Washington in the role of the Soviet agent, /Film speculates perhaps Viggo Mortensen, Mr. Cronenberg's go-to-muse of the last decade, would take on that part. Since he's already had the practice doing a Russian accent in Eastern Promises, we think that's mighty fine casting. Plus, who doesn't like Viggo?

Sadly, our enthusiasm for Mr. Cronenberg is more tempered.  We appreciate his technical aptitude, but often his films lack anything resembling real human emotion. They're cold and clinical and so overly violent that they achieve the point of numbness. Perhaps then, he's the perfect director to tackle something written by Robert Ludlum, the master of cold and clinical storytelling. And, we'll be honest, despite our misgivings about Mr. Cronenberg we're still interested to see his take on the genre. We love when directors work outside their boxes!

Just a small post-script: Doesn't it seem like Denzel Washington only makes these mismatched buddy movies where rivals come together? American Gangster, Training Day, Inside Man, the upcoming Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 remake with John Travolta and now The Matarese Circle. They're all ruminations on the same theme. We love Denzel, but come on! Maybe it's time to try something a little more challenging.

In most movie westerns, an appaloosa is a horse. But the title of his new revisionist oater, Ed Harris’ first outing in the director’s chair since Pollock, refers to a town where, as one wag at last week’s dull Toronto International Film Festival observed, “men are men and women are … Renée Zellweger.” It went over with a thud there, but in retrospect, considering all the pretentious bores surrounding it, it’s beginning to look good.

I doubt if Appaloosa would have appealed to John Ford. It’s got too much exaggeration and restraint, in equal doses, to fit neatly into the master’s carefully plotted, predictable and noisy epic narratives. But although it’s more Clint Eastwood than John Ford, the word “revisionist” might be the wrong adjective. A lot of it reflects the Freudian angst of The Unforgiven, with battered heroes in saddles and spurs able to take on deadly gangs of demented thieves and rustlers at the firing of a pistol, yet as nervous and unhinged in the sheets as horny toads in a mayonnaise jar. But part of it is old-fashioned—the cowboys are too noble for their own good, the villains are scoundrels and killers and rats who talk with guns instead of words, and there are rampaging Indians, too. Ed Harris reunites with Viggo Mortensen, his co-star in A History of Violence, and the chemistry is easygoing and understated. But he should have left the direction to someone else. His action sequences are a mess, and he never finds a comfortable way to work Ms. Zellweger into the plot. She’s just an apple-cheeked wedge between two saddle bums who would be much happier alone together finding a home on the range.

Set in 1882 in a small mining community in New Mexico, the film centers on two buddies with badges who re-define male bonding. Virgil Cole (Mr. Harris) is the new marshal hired to save the town from a ruthless, rampaging rattlesnake named Bragg (Jeremy Irons, with a sagebrush accent that sometimes borders on Walter Brennan), whose gang has been holding the law-abiding citizens hostage, killing off their law enforcement officers, terrorizing their local saloon and raping their women. Virgil vows to stop the mayhem and restore order with the aid of his partner for a dozen years following the Civil War, a soft-spoken deputy named Everett Hitch (Mr. Mortensen). Hitch is a West Point graduate with education and refinement who is equally adept with a dictionary and an eight-gauge shotgun. Polite but lethal, Cole and Hitch are two hombres with a code of honor who make John Wayne look like a wuss until the arrival of a provocative, unconventional widow named Allison (Ms. Zellweger), who plays saloon piano and turns the plot into a destructive ménage à trois from which it never regains balance. This is a focused, fiery Susan Hayward role, played by a squinting Barbie doll (what is wrong with Ms. Zellweger’s eyes?) who never seems to see anything clearly. Until she shows up, Cole and Hitch wear their badges with character-driven friendship and humor, qualities unusual in westerns. They don’t even have to talk; they know each other so well they can think each other’s thoughts and finish each other’s sentences. Cole’s fists and Hitch’s vocabulary work in tandem, with Hitch supplying words like “disparaging” and “commiserate.” Things change when Cole becomes besotted with the widow and buys her a house. He believes that if you have feelings, you lose your perspective as a cold-blooded lawman, but when he finds himself picking out curtain fabrics and telling Hitch his estimation of a worthwhile woman is the way she chews her food and whether she takes a bath before bedtime, you know things are going downhill in a barrel. For a man whose experience with women has been limited to “squaws and whores,” the swift transition to domestic tranquility is never believable, but when Hitch discovers the widow’s true nature (no hothouse tea rose, this blushing widow) and keeps it from his friend, you believe it. This is really a love story between two Adams in buckskin, divided by Eve and her apple. You wait to see how long it takes before they get it. But first, they must deal with Bragg, who takes Allison captive and has a go at her himself (the widow has already put the moves on Hitch). And don’t forget about those pesky Indians, who tire of beads and blankets and start sending up smoke signals. … By the time one of the heroes rides into the sunset like Shane (no spoilers, please), you know he’s earned some peace, and so have you.

Despite an abundance of clichés borrowed from every western from Rio Bravo to High Noon, the script by Mr. Harris and Robert Knott, from a sagebrush saga by Robert B. Parker, is as surprisingly full of details as it is slow in pace. The cinematography depicting this parched, primarily drab landscape is uninspired, moving from standard close-ups to routine master shots with a predictability that never achieves a poetic patina. Some of the actors are absurdly out of place (Zellweger, Irons and walrus-faced Timothy Spall, whose British decorum is ridiculous amid the frontier cactus); others appear to be born in the saddle. Viggo steals the picture. His always fresh and relaxed expressions, with dark subtexts dancing just below the surface, never cease to astound me. The bond that ties him to Mr. Harris is also what wrenches them apart; one tries to hide his lack of education, the other tries to conceal his I.Q, and both men act rugged in their denial of their covert affection. There is also a nice bit by a brave young escaped gang member who turns the tables on Bragg and his outlaws by testifying against them in court; he’s played by newcomer Gabriel Marantz, who happens in real life to be the grandson of legendary movie musical dancers Marge and Gower Champion. Who else would tell you these things?

rreed@observer.com