Release Date: August 15, 2003
Starring: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, Michael Gambon, Michael Jeter, Diego Luna
Directed by: Kevin Costner
Written by: Craig Storper
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
MPAA Rating: R (violence)
Moviegoers have a right to be wary about Kevin Costner movies. Most viewers would agree that his small body of work behind the camera consists mostly of unpleasant moments. But he, like everyone else, isn’t perfect, and he, like everyone else, is capable of turning it around at any moment -- something he's done with the excellent Western Open Range.
Not long before he made Open Range, it seemed like Costner was well past his prime (Field of Dreams, JFK, and Dances With Wolves, for example) and stuck making lackluster thrillers like 3,000 Miles to Graceland and Dragonfly. That’s what makes this Western all the more impressive, because he was bold enough to ignore the critics and craft a film directly from his heart. The outcome is a wonderful and awesome display of both the filmmaker’s courage and the talent that never left him.
Open Range starts off at a rather slow pace, with wide angles of the rolling landscape of the American West and a dominant musical score. At this point, Costner haters might have reason to worry that little will be accomplished throughout the entire experience and that it could be as boring as Wyatt Earp and as pretentious as The Postman.
This isn’t what happens, though. The story, based on the novel by Lauran Paine and adapted by screenwriter Craig Storper, is considerably well structured and allows itself to progress at a gradual and perfectly comfortable pace. We first meet Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) and Charley Waite (Costner) on the open prairie in 1882, and the tale carries them into a town where a wealthy and malicious Irish businessman named Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon) has everyone from the bartender to the local law enforcement on his payroll. Boss and Charley involve themselves with Baxter when they realize they have to defend themselves and their rights to cattle drivers or “free grazers.”
Admirably, Costner allows Duvall to take the lead in every scene they share. Together, they are honorable and highly believable partners who respect each other’s presence as much as they do the story. Duvall is the rational elder, the one that the younger characters admire and obey, and the actor makes it his best performance since Apocalypse Now, or possibly even The Godfather. The fact that Costner, an actor some see as arrogant and self-indulgent, steps aside to let Duvall work in the superior role shows how much of a keen eye and high regard for the story the director actually has. Costner knows when he’s needed and when he’s not, and there’s no evidence here that the man is full of himself.
His love for the material is also greatly noticeable in the attention to realistic detail and the film’s overall practical approach. Unlike over-the-top and “modernized” Westerns like The Quick and the Dead and Tombstone, Open Range has the most authentic feel of its genre since Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and perhaps even since films long before that. The costumes and sets are appropriately undistinguished, and not even the action is overly cinematic. There are no unusual weapons like those in the laughable Wild Wild West or elaborate camera tricks that have become customary of this “Matrix generation” of movies, yet the gunfights are still fantastic and the picture’s credibility remains fully intact.
The characters themselves aren’t larger-than-life superhumans, either. Our heroes, for example, are real people with real emotions, and therefore when the conflict reaches its highest point, the reaction from the audience is equally as genuine. Annette Bening and the late Michael Jeter (who managed to survive long enough to see the movie’s final cut) have perfect supporting roles as they boost the movie’s sentimental value while leaving the meatier elements to the leads.
There is one area in which the film may have overstepped itself -- the love story between the characters played by Costner and Bening. Still, even that element has a refreshing sense of realism because there is no sex betwen the characters and no words of cliché dialogue exchanged. The relationship between the two of them develops as believably as any cinematic love story before it, and in fact, the characters don’t even kiss for the first time until the very end of the movie. Whether this romantic element is necessary to the overall film is somewhat questionable, but it works very well nonetheless.
And believe it or not, Costner kept the running time to just under 140 minutes and he still did everything exactly the way he wanted to. It may be a humble story of friendship, romance, and revenge, but it’s the spirit and determination of its producer-director and star that sets the movie way above the majority of Hollywood Westerns. Essentially, Open Range was made exactly the way a Western should be, and Kevin Costner deserves nearly all of the credit. His career may have plenty of scars, but those can all be forgotten when a gem like this comes along.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)