Rating: 
Summary: Strong contemporary western from Costner
Review: Stories of redemption and revenge have always been at the core of westerns. Kevin Costner's Open Range recalls both Dances with Wolves with its languid pacing and intensive eye for the fine detail living in the 19th century. The well drawn characters and performances that seem as if they could have been drawn from the frontier give life to Costner's film. Open Range's subject matter was drawn from a conflict in real life; free range cattle were driven from land that wasn't owned by anybody by cattle barons intend on controlling their market and everything that surrounded them. Costner's elegiac western touches all the right buttons to make it a classic American western. If it fails to meet the expectations of the genre's best, perhaps its because the genre seems at a creative dead end much as it was before Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood helped reinvent the genre. Costner's own Dances with Wolves went a long way to try and reinvent the Western in the mythic style of John Ford and with Open Range he is at least partially successful.Charlie (Costner), Boss (Robert Duvall), Mose(Abraham Benrubi from E.R.) and Button (Diego Luna) are driving their cattle across the country to market. Even though Charlie and Boss have been riding together 10 years, they know next to nothing about each other's past; There's a darkness that haunts Charlie and Boss that they've never spoken of to each other. Their ghosts will soon rear their ugly heads. They've chosen a life without any roots and, as such, they literally have become their own family. Their cattle survive by eating in the open ranges across the west. Unfortunately, open ranges are disappearing as if there's a fire sale going on as rancher's fence up the surrounding countryside even when it doesn't belong to them. When Mose is attacked and injured in a fight with goons working for a nasty cattle baron named Baxter (Michael Gabon in a significantly oily and evil performance), Charlie and Boss must get him out of jail. When they have his injuries attended to by the local doctor, Charlie meets the down-to-earth Sue (Annette Benning). There's an instant attraction between them. He keeps his distance believing her to be married to the doctor. When Baxter's men attack their wagon and killing and injuring their friends, the two men return to the town seeking justice and revenge. Beautifully shot by cinematographer James Muro and well written by Craig Storper there are elements of Open Range that recall Unforgiven; that's no surprise as Costner had tried to purchase, star and direct that film before Clint Eastwood made off with it. There elements no doubt attracted Costner to the project but there's also a feeling of hopefulness that's missing from the much darker and brooding Unforgiven. Open Range isn't a perfect western but it is a very good attention to the genre. At 139 minutes the film is a tad too long but clearly Costner attempt to capture the lifestyle of the free range cowboy was very important to him. These details make the film and performances more believable. The picture quality is outstanding. The sound mix sounded a tad flat and was difficult to hear in stereo but was just fine in 5.1 DTS. The extras include audio commentary by Kevin Costner (disc one) and a handful of very good featurettes on disc two including "America's Open Range" a look at the history of the real open range with Costner providing narration, "Beyond Open Range" a fascinating glimpse at the creative decisions Costner had to make to produce the film, deleted scenes with optional commentary and storyboard sequences. There's also a nicely put together Music Video Montage featuring the late Michael Kamen's beautifully evocative score.
Rating: 
Summary: Falls Short of Potential
Review: (actual rating: 2 1/2 stars). This could have been one of the great westerns of all time. Good story, great music, incredible scenery, best gunfight sequence of any western (they even used realistic gunpowder). Acting was decent: Duvall was superb, as usual; Jeter was great, Costner was pretty good, Bening's part in the script was weak but she pulled it off OK. The bad guys, however, suffered from poor acting, particularly the evil rancher and the sheriff. The problem with this movie, though, is Costner's fixation with making an "epic". He's just not good at it. There were many, many dull scenes and pregnant pauses that should have ended up on the cutting room floor. The whole scene with the town flooding (cowboys laying down planks to cross the muddy street, etc.) was irrelevant to the story. At 2 hours, 10 minutes or so, the movie is about 25 minutes too long. Edit and re-release it and it WOULD be an absolute classic!!
Rating:
Summary: Not a fantastic Western but a good one
Review: Although Open Range isn't the best western I've seen it's still a well made one. The shoot-outs are intense and the scenery is beautiful. Kevin Costner who had shots of himself in pretty much every scene of the Postman shows less ego here. In Open Range it's Robert Duvall who actually gets all the close-ups and good lines. This movie is totally his and Costner seemed to have known that from the start. I mean he pretty much just sits back and lets himself be Duvall's side-kick although he directed the film. He's still good in the movie though. He plays a guy with a dark past who's trying to be a better man. Costner hits all the right notes as playing that type character here. Some say he's a dull actor but he's just laid-back. He showed me with 3000 Miles to Graceland that he can not only give a fun performance but that he can steal the show if he to as well. I think he's more engaging when he plays these quiet and hard to figure out guys though, yes even in WaterWorld. Although Duvall steals the show, him and Costner make a great team and Costner proves he's worthy of sharing the same screen as him at least. Annette Benning who's a fine actress isn't really at her best here though. I guess it's because he part is the least enagining. I mean when 2 friends of Costner and Duvall get wounded she's just there to patch them up. I guess that it's hard to give a women a good role in western though, even one as talented as Benning. Anyway I still liked the movie a lot. It's not up there with Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves or Tombstone but it's still very good. It's Costner's best directed movie since Dances with Wolves.
Rating: 
Summary: An Everyday Man's Classic
Review: This movie had so much right about it. While it did embrace a widely done simple plot--two men standing up to a corrupt sheriff who has been bought off by the local wealthy rancher, this western managed to pull off depth, beauty, and a real portrait of ordinary courage, in no small part due to the stunning performances of Robert Duvall, Annette Benning, and Kevin Costner. A great movie puts as much in the silences as it does in the script--and this one was chalked full of that. The chemistry between Annette Benning's character and Kevin Costner was electric! She was amazing, not only because she is still stunningly beautiful, but because she portrayed the kind of grit and courage I would expect of a woman living in those times. And Kevin Costner managed to bring depth to this character equal to his performance in Dances With Wolves. His relationship with Robert Duvall really was definately the mortar to this film though. Duvall gives the strength and resiliance you would expect of a big screen cowboy. I liked that you didn't really know if the two would make it out alive. And somehow the resolution managed to maintain its authenticity even though it gave me what I wanted--a vivid portrait of how amazing people lived hard lives well. This movie is one of the few I would add to my permanent collection.
Rating:
Summary: costners passion for cinematography
Review: In his film "Open Range" Kevin Costner displays for one and all his true passion. It is evident from the opening scenes through the credits that Mr. Costner is in love with cinema. He takes time to share with the viewer the panoramas that his characters are living in. His passion for panoramic views and lingering shots of the vastness of the space in which drama occurs is more than enough to give this viewer his moneys worth. Costners love of film making is captured in this film for all to see. Not since "wolves" has he been so willing to risk spending precious footage to focus on the space surrounding his characters. He truly expands the set to include the miles and miles of majestic wilderness, and allows the viewer to experience this film from an expanded sense of realism .
Rating:
Summary: As good as a "western" gets... or can be filmed...
Review: Duvall is just great and makes a very good tandem with a subdued Costner.
Will be a classic in due time, (the final showdown has very great "novelties" and feels REAL ENOUGH to make you shiver... no fancy shooting, no slow motion (well a bit), no interminable close up of eyes, hands, twitching fingers etc, the townspeople are a great bunch and act as "normal" persons instead of the usual "dummies"...), as good as "Dances with Wolves", "Lonesome Dove" and "Unforgiven"...
Benning as professional as ever.
Beautifully shot (pun intended).
Worth every penny. (or cent?)
And incidentally the most expensive advert I ever saw concerning bittersweet swiss chocolate or cuban cigars for that matter.
To be enjoyed by WESTERN fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Let's hope that Costner and Storper never do this again . .
Review: It's been a while since we all heard from Kevin Costner, film director. And from the opening scenes of Open Range, I wish it had been longer. Nonsensical script snippets that meander at best, bizzare shot choices, unlevel storytelling, cliched plot lines, stilted text that stuck in everyone's mouths and very possibly the most boring western ever produced. One star for beautiful locations and the occasionally well composed shot - but then invariably, the scene would end inexplicably with a very awkward fade to black or someone would open their mouths and actually speak Craig Storper's horrifically trite dialogue ("I see big plans for us . . . but I won't wait forever") or Costner would set up yet another brutally amateurishly staged shot that would immediately remind you that behind that vast expanse of wide open country was four 5 ton grip trucks, 10 Winnabegos, Craft Service and more than 70 people dressed in North Face jackets. Poor dialogue, poor execution, poor acting, poor storytelling, poor . . . ah, just plain poor. Even fans of Annette Benning and Robert Duvall will be disappointed with this lackluster effort. Only people inexplicibly riveted by the extraordinary sex appeal of the ever-balding pate of Kevin Coster will be happy watching this. Well, people who really like spending an evening watching paint dry will probably enjoy this as well. But the truly hideous part of this film is, as earlier indicated, the amazing dialogue and plot work of Craig Storper. Shallow to the point of making Days of Our Lives seem like Tolstoy, the dialogue makes little sense, the plot is color by the numbers and the characters pulled straight from Central Casting. Storper has not done much before Open Range, and one wonders how he convinced Costner to pick this dud from the piles of screenplays littering his office. I, for one, wish he haden't. Feeling yourself in a Western state of mind? Put this down and pick up Shane. Or The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Or almost any other movie for that matter. Just don't bother with this one.
Rating:
Summary: An old-fashioned western
Review: One of the best parts of this movie is the cinematography which shows breathtaking scenery in Canada. Another strength is the presence of Robert Duvall who portrays the boss of 3 other men whose herd of cattle do "free-range" grazing, much to the chagrin of the neighboring cattlemen. He and Kevin Costner have to stand up to the men who oppose them, which leads to the obligatory shoot-out at the end. Another subplot is the developing relationship between Costner's character and Annette Bening who plays the part of the sister of the local doctor who tends to Duvall's men who are wounded by the townspeople. This movie is a welcome throw-back to the old-fashioned western and makes for good viewing despite some stilted dialogue ("Let's rustle up some grub.")
Rating:
Summary: Weak Characterizations. Rehashed Plot. New Location.
Review: In 1882, four free-grazing cattle farmers are harassed by a competitive landowning rancher named Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon). When Baxter's men raid their camp and kill one of their employees, Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) and his partner Charley Waite (Kevin Costner) decide that the right to be wherever they please and graze their cattle on public lands is worth risking their lives over. They head into town for a showdown with Baxter just as Charley has discovered he might have something worth living for: the love of Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), a townswoman who generously cared for their wounded colleagues. "Open Range" was adapted for the screen by Craig Storper from the novel of the same name by Lauran Paine. It marks the second time that Kevin Costner has directed and starred in an epic Western. In this case, "epic" means long. Long movie, long shots, sweeping landscape. "Open Range" clocks in at about two hours and twenty minutes, which seems to be the favored length for big budget films in 2003. In this case, the length isn't justified. This film is rife with conspicuously unnecessary and unnecessarily time-consuming shots. I'm sure that Kevin Costner is trying to convey an impression of vastness and the slow pace of life on the frontier, but he apparently lacks Sergio Leone's skill. The extra shots just seem superfluous and make the movie too long. Costner has more success in using the film's sounds to these ends. The audio track on "Open Range" is very quiet. We often hear conversation with no background noise, which gives the impression of a vast unpopulated space. The film has a score, but it's pretty subtle and appropriately absent in the film's most effective scenes. Apart from the film's length, "Open Range" is just a lot of rehashed territory. Costner is playing a disillusioned and guilt-ridden Civil War veteran for the second time. There are good ranchers and bad ranchers, a corrupt sheriff, polarized townspeople, and a big gun battle. The two protagonists seem a little underwritten, and the dialogue is often implausible. One detail of the film's plot that I don't recall seeing in a Western before is that the film's love story centers around middle-aged people. This may make the film more attractive to some and less attractive to others. "Open Range" takes place on the prairie, not in the desert Southwest, so the film's images are lush and green. I have the impression that all the flowing water and attractive plant life support an environmental undercurrent that is often present in modern Westerns. Westerns, like any other genre of film, reflect contemporary issues more than those of the 19th century, and there is very little prairie left. There is some good stuff in this film. I like its quietness, and the gun battle does manage some real suspense. But I can only recommend "Open Range" to committed fans of Westerns, who will have seen it all before. -In the desert. But, hey, this is on the prairie.
Rating:
Summary: The Awesome, Openness Range of Both Beauty & Drama!
Review: We were watching after a long tiring day of teaching, a weekend of being with too many wonderful people! Then we got to behold the Awesome, openness Western range in beauty drama of powerful acting! Duvall was Perfect as The Boss! Kevin Costner, Potent and Powerful Actor of subdued rage in his relived early life as reminding us of his submerged feelings of killing real people not so much as killing the scum-of-the-earth people! As one who has seen and dealt with long-term prison inmates, I have never been so close to such pictures of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth! The sudden revealing of the accepting, loving, sister Annette Benning in role of Doc's assistant made the connection that some people seem to be worth only killing since they have acted-out their rage on Innocent Persons! We did not realize what a jewel of a picture until her loving acceptance of Costner as an OK killing agent of judgement! No matter how many reviews written, nothing I saw in most that I disagreed, other than: "Too Long! It Needed to Be..."
An Older Retired, Chaplain, Fred W Hood
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