Open Range
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Canada
Movie Reviews of Open Range
Movie Review: Costner's best since Dances
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not a Kevin Costner fan by any means, but his good movies are really good. He gets it right when he gets out of the way of the characters and doesn't try to show us how wonderful he is. Dances With Wolves was great, Bull Durham was outstanding, Field of Dreams was near perfect, and I even loved American Flyers, about him as a bicycle racer. His bad movies stink to high heaven--Waterworld, Wyatt Earp, The Postman, For Love of the Game, because they are all about him, not the story or the characters.Now we have Open Range, a great story about a group of "Free grazers", men who live off the land with their cattle, but don't pay for any of it, they have no ties to a town. It is the time when the big ranchers are taking over, and free grazing is looked down upon harshly, even though it is technically still legal behavior. While grazing in a particular area, they realize they are missing some supplies, and they send one man back to the town. When he doesn't return, the two main men in the group, Boss (Robert Duvall) and Charly (Costner) go to the town to see what happened.
Their friend was provoked into a fight, defended himself, and was now in jail. The problem? The sherriff and a rancher hate him for being a free grazer and set him up. This sets up the story, where the men stay in the area to fight the sherriff and the rancher and stand up for their rights. There is even time for Charly to fall in love with the doctor's sister (Annette Bening) before the final showdown. The final gunfight is really good, mainly because it is so realistic. This is how you would imagine a gunfight taking place. Nothing glamorous, just reality.
This movie succeeds because the story is a good one, and the characters are people we care about. Boss and Charly are good men, simple, but they play by the rules and they expect others to do the same. They are loyal to each other, even though they have not had the time to learn much basic information about each other, like what Boss's first name is. (wait until you hear what it is). This is a slow paced, enjoyable western, not action packed, but interesting and something new, which is not something you can say about many movies coming out these days.
Movie Review: A Unique Review of Open Range
Summary: 5 Stars
A review of the movie "Open Range." As noted in my movie review for the "Red Headed Stranger" (RHS), I have a fondness for westerns. I also have a fondness for accurate history of the west, a subject that is very difficult to pin down. And surely much of our "history" of the west comes from books and/or movies.
While there are a variety of themes covered in westerns, one frequently seen is a town that is being dominated by an evil family, and its head. Frequently such an individual would have, or would seek total control of a critical resource. In the RHS the resource was water and the evil family was the Clavers clan, and its head Larn Claver, who considers Driscoll, MT his town.
The movie "Open Range" is a similar movie. Here the resource is grazing land and the cattle barons do not want any "free grazers" using "their land." Here the ruthless and evil rancher is a Denton Baxter, "an Irish born land baron who considers Harmonville his town."
The cast includes:
1) Robert Duvall, perhaps my favorite western actor, as the head free grazer;
2) Kevin Costner, perhaps my least favorite actor until this movie, as the #2 free grazer, and former Civil War sniper and gun slinger, a man very accustomed to killing;
3) Annette Bening, who I had not seen before this movie, is the sister and assistant to the towns doctor, and gives an outstanding performance as the love interest of the #2 free grazer. Perhaps the key weapon that gave the free grazers a chance was the lifting an extra bottle of chloroform from the doctors cabinet. This was used to subdue the crooked town marshal and his men prior to the final gun fight.
And this resulting gun fight makes the "Gun Fight at the OK Coral" look like the amateur hour.
Accolades were many such as "Two Thumbs Up" by Ebert & Roeper.
Awards included the2004 Western Heritage Award. This was likely do to this story between cattle barons and open rangers "that's never been told before now", and suggests a level of accuracy that may have never been reached before.
Movie Review: great great great movie!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not a big fan of western movies; they seem to be more popular for men (the male answer to the "chick flick"). That said, I am, however, a Costner fan, especially the movies he has directed: I even liked THE POSTMAN.Bearing all this in mind, I cannot help but write about how much I enjoyed this movie. Because I have not been exposed to many western films I thought this movie was just wonderful. Costner, accepting that he is no longer the swashbuckling BODYGUARD or ROBIN HOOD has taken a more mature roll and made a more mature movie. The panoramic shots of southern Canada are stunning and the letterbox format of the DVD displays the scope and majesty of the film in fabulous ways.
This movie takes its time but doesn't dawddle, and I like that, it moves along, but at it's own pace; pulling the viewer into the slow life of the free grazer. The characterization buildup of the main characters is slow but complete and little is said between the characters but much is revealed; Costner trusts his audience to think for themselves and doesn't waste time explaining everything at tremendous length.
The supporting cast also adds to the cultural makeup of the old west without being overbearing or pretentious: the evil cattle baron is an Irish immigrant and needs only to make a single comment on the hardships in Ireland during the 19th century to give the viewer a full piture as to his power-hungry motivation.
The added features can get a little tedious (Costner complaining ad nauseum about budget problems and such like) but also contain some great gems-- a small featurette about the real open range complete with captions of letters from real coyboys and even Teddy Roosevelt (I recommended it to my sister who teaches history to show it to her class when teaching about westward expansion) really bring a fuller understanding of the film.
I loved this movie very much and was happy to be exposed in a different way to a genre that I really haven't understood before.
Hats off to Costner, this is a great movie of which he should be very proud!
Movie Review: Values of an old Western with Modern Production - Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
This has the values of the old fashioned Western with modern production values. It is beautifully filmed and I think the story is wonderfully told. The opening scenes have an almost languorous tempo that might seem slow to modern sensibilities. But I liked it a lot. It is nice to have time to absorb things, notice things, and have time to think about them without having the next thing crammed into your face. The poetic foreboding of the opening storm sequences is a bit thick, but there you go.The story is set in 1882. Boss (Duvall) and Charlie (Costner) and a couple of Free Rangers (guys who raise their cattle on open land rather than own any) with a couple of hands and a dog are driving their cattle near a town. They send one of their hands in for some supplies and the trouble begins. While Free Rangers aren't popular with folks who want to own land and raise their cattle on it, it was still legal and most people put up with it while discouraging the practice. However, the villain of the story, Baxter, (wonderfully played by Michael Gambon) wants no competition and his hatred is near maniacal. He owns that town and demands everyone bow to his will.
I won't give away the nature of the conflict, but it leads to a very dramatic gun fight that does happen in spasms and very quickly. I don't think the violence should have gotten it an R rating, but the ratings people did. There isn't anything all that graphic by today's standards. But the guns boom like cannon and you can figure out who wins.
Annette Bening plays a wonderful love interest with presence, beauty, intelligence, and does add a lot to the story. Duvall and Costner are terrific. Abraham Benrubi has a wonderful presence and his short role adds a great deal to the film. I enjoy him every time I see him and wish he were in more substantial roles. He is more than just a big guy. It is a good cast and an enjoyable movie. Rent it, buy it, see it somehow and I think you will enjoy it unless you need a frenetic pace to keep your attention focused.
Movie Review: A Wet and Green, Pretty Darn Good Oater
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie gets some basic, important things right. Many reviewers bemoan the lack of originality in modern film output, including this movie, but that misses the point as far as the formula for film success goes. The truth of the matter is that there really is little if anything new under the sun; therefore looking for new things is looking for the wrong things. Successful story telling needs to connect with the audience, and that does not require innovation - it requires sensitivity to the human experience, and this movie is successful in this respect.
This film does use an unconventional setting by being green and wet rather than brown and dry and dusty like most Westerns, and that adds some distinction, and the attention to detail in the buildings inside and out is admirable and artistic.
The dialogue fluctuates from stilted (he didn't really say that, did he?) to pretty good. But there is an underlying message of human virtue confronting nefarious forces that is told in a way with which an audience can connect.
One way this movie can resonate with contemporary viewers is as a metaphor for decency fighting terrorism. Modern viewers of healthy moral fiber want those bad guys blown away, and that is what happens in this movie. The bad guys are unapologetically and decisively blown away, and this makes for a satisfying story. Good triumphing over wickedness will never, ever go away as an effective story-line. Why try?
This is a four-square American story, and is therefore unlikely to be well-received overseas. First of all, the Western genre is quintessentially American, and secondly the theme of strong and moral men putting themselves in great danger and fighting for principle is more or less uniquely American. Other cultures tend to fight for other, less noble reasons, or not at all - evil is allowed to triumph over good.
This is a satisfying and enjoyable movie. Way to go, Kevin.