Video: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger in “Appaloosa”

Watch the new trailer for Ed Harris’ western Appaloosa right here on Fancast.

Ed Harris hasn’t directed anything since his debut with Pollock back in 2000, which got him nominated for Best Actor (and won Best Supporting Actress for Marcia Gay Harden). So when Harris is in the director’s chair, people stand up and take notice.

It may be surprising that he’d move from abstract art to a gritty western, but we’ve all seen Unforgiven - we know what the genre is capable of delivering in the right hands, and it’s hard to believe that Harris’ hands could be wrong. In Appaloosa, he plays Virgil Cole, who blows into town with his partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) to find that the place is run by a bastard rancher by the name of Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), who has just left the town marshal and his deputy for dead. This conveniently leave a pair of openings for Cole and Hitch to step into. Being the wily gunmen they are, Appaloosa soon hosts a battle of wits and wills between the cavalier twosome and the ruthless rabble-rouser. Trouble is that they know that feelings get you killed, but Cole finds himself getting closer to Allie (Renee Zellweger) anyway. When Bragg starts playing on their emotions, things start to get heavy.

Watch the Appaloosa trailer online right now.