Rating: 
Summary: Slow, Slower and Slowest!
Review: I wanted so much to like Open Range! Perhaps that's why my disappontment was even greater! I loved DANCES; I loved LONESOME DOVE. I did not like OPEN RANGE. "Slow" just doesn't come close to describing how slow this movie is. I started wishing they would get onto the gun battle, just so the action would pick up. The "extras" on the dvd are better than the movie. OPEN RANGE is great on scenery; but Boss and Charley spent way too much time giving each other meaningful looks instead of getting to the business at hand...defending the rights of "open rangers."
Rating: 
Summary: Great Western, Could Have Been Shorter!
Review: The movie was great for me. It took me back to the days of the traditional westerns, where you focused more on the acting than the actual gunfights and shootouts. However, the one flaw was that the movie started off quite slow, too slow for my liking but later picked up once Costner and DuVall ended up in the small town to pick up their friend outta jail. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, too beautiful in fact to make you believe it was the late 1800's. Canada is beautiful territory. The gunfight scenes were awesome. Most Westerns have just the good guy shoot it out with the bad guys at the end but the gunfight scenes in this movie made it all worth while. One person who gave this movie a bad review said Costner's character couldn't have had time to fall in love. Well, as a man I will tell you that once you meet Mrs Right, and we all know when we do, you'll make the time. If you watch the movie closely, you would know that that's the one thing that knawed away at both Costner and DuVall's character throughout the movie, the lack of true love in their lives. Great Western, could have been shorter, but well worth the 15 bucks I paid for on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: If You Didn't Like This Film You Are Stupid!!
Review: The people who wrote critical reviews of this film are stupid! They complain it is too long, no story, don't like Costner, don't like the time spent on the dead dog, blah, blah, blah. A movie should not be a computer generated mish mash of quick cuts that leave you blury eyed and light headed. A movie shouldn't be a confusing story line that waits until the end to tie things together. A movie shouldn't just end without even bothering to tie things together. A movie should tell a story. This one does. I liked the fact that it wasn't dark. I liked the fact that the characters had principles. I liked the love story. I liked the dog. I liked the townsfolk pitching in. I liked that good guys won. I liked that all the bad guys died. I was suprised at how lousy a shot Costner was. This is a gentle movie that tells a simple story and tells it well. It reminds me of classic films from the 40's and 50's. If you have such a short attention span that someone must die every minute or something must be blown up every scene then read the papers about our Iraq occupation. This movie is for quiet, gentle people who appreciate a good story. It is one of 2003's best films.
Rating: 
Summary: One of My All-TIme Favorites
Review: Westerns are thought of as being a dying genre for movies, especially by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. However, Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN breathed new life into the genre, and Kevin Costner's OPEN RANGE continues what UNFORGIVEN began with one of the best movies of 2003 and one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Set in 1882, a time when free-grazing was slowly but surely dying out, cattlemen Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) and Charley Waite (Kevin Costner) find themselves in a grave situation when they run into a ruthless rancher named Baxter (played to near bad-guy perfection by Michael Gambon). With one of their companions dead and the other being treated by the town doctor and his sister, Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), Spearman and Charley face off against Baxter and the men that work for him. During all of this, Charley ends up confronting his violent past stemming from the Civil War, which turns out to be a real barrier between him and his love interest, who happens to be Sue.
Sure, the movie starts out a little slow and drawn-out, but the excellent character development and the absolutely spectacular gunfight at the film's climax more than makes up for it. Even if you're not a fan of westerns, like me, I can guarantee that if you rent it and then decide to buy it, the money will be well spent.
Rating:
Summary: "The faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare.."
Review: At least that's what Orson Welles said in "The Magnificient Ambersons," and it applies to this movie in that viewers these days seem to have no tollerance for a movie, like "Open Range," that takes its own sweet time. Anyway, he may have helmed legendarily bad sci-fi movies like "The Postman" and also 'Waterworld' (after original director, Kevin Reynolds, split the scene) but Kevin Costner definitely knows how to direct a Western. The recipe: fill a wide horizon with sweeping plains, hills, ravines and throngs of livestock; pour in crisp, rushing rivers; float huge white clouds over sawdusty towns. Then add two sets of characters with a simple conflict between them and let it cook for at least two hours. 'Open Range' is a satisfying stew of just that sort. It's not out to blaze new territory, it just wants to evoke the loping pace and feel of vintage oaters like Howard Hawks' 'Red River' and 'Rio Bravo.' Wandering cattlemen, played by Costner and Robert Duvall, mosey into the wrong pasture and butt heads with sadistic rancher Michael Gambon. Little by little their differences escalate into a full-scale turf war, a virtuoso showdown that was one of 2003's best scenes. The movie's leisurely pace and extended running time will put some off (and, yeah, as much as I liked the film, its final ten minutes do feel like a bit of a jerk-around) but they're balanced by three big positives: the sweeping frontier scenery (Canada, actually); Gambon's snarling, enjoyably vile villain; and Duvall, who basically reprises his laid-back character from 'Lonesome Dove,' but still deftly steals the movie anyway. The DVD includes an interesting 'making of' documentary that follows 'Range' from pre-production through its release. It gives a thorough, inside look at modern moviemaking, marred only by director Costner's grouchy on-camera egoism. Want to know just how much creative and financial anguish he went through to make this critical and commercial hit? He's all too happy to oblige.
Rating: 
Summary: What a waste of $21.
Review: Too long, too drawn out. The love story had no place in the movie and Annette Bening was just too old for the role, it was not convincing at all. How unrealistic with everything going on that Costner's Charlie would have any time at all to "fall in love". An epic for scenery with no plot to hold it up. Cliched story, bad cattle man etc. Nothing new here. Some pretty scenery, but boy it gets boring fast. And such ringing of the audience's emotions. Oh the soppy music playing when they pan over to their dead dog! They made more of the dead dog than the two dead friends.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome gunfight!!
Review: The first thing I noticed was how realistic the characters were. Many times in modern westerns they depict these educated well spoken cowboys when realistically most of them were not. The characters in this movie depicted how a real cowboy would act and talk. The sound of the guns being fired was the most realistic I have ever heard in any movie. I frequent the local shooting range to practice with my .45 and know the sound well. I was surprised when I heard it in this movie. It was awesome! It made the fight scenes seem very real.
Rating:
Summary: Im sorry...
Review: Im sorry for everyone that watched this movie but this was the most boring western ever. It could have been cut down to around 2 hours if they didn't show every little thing like a close shot of flicking a cigerate to him looking at the sun to watching them slowly trot across the plains. It was 2 1/2 hours of art shots and a 1/2 hour at the end of the longest drawn out gunfight ever.
Rating:
Summary: Open Range - A brilliant western!
Review: "Open Range" is an incredibly poetic, simple, yet complex film that is extremely entertaining on all points. It has probably been since the release of "Unforgiven" that I've watched a new western and enjoyed it this much! Few films in today's era go so far as "Open Range" does as far as character and plot development, fearing that they would bore the audience to death which may well be true for many other films but it works perfectly in this exceptional movie, flawlessly building up the suspense for the ultimate conclusion of the film. I would definitely have to say it has also been a long time since I've watched a film with Kevin Costner in it that I've enjoyed this much as well. I wouldn't go so far as to say, with this one film, that he's back but this film makes a very good start at him showing the depth of his acting abilities once again. The true star of this exceptional film is Robert Duvall. He is a true star in all genres but he shines even brighter when it's time to don a role in a western movie. Then there's Annette Bening, an actress of true beauty who has always been such a special influence on every film she takes up and with this role, she once again vividly displays why she is a film star. Along with the starring role, Kevin Costner takes the nod for producing and more importantly, directing this intriguingly captivating movie. I would have to say that of the movies he's directed so far that I've watched this was his best effort in the director's seat. The Premise: Welcome to the open range of America during the year of 1882. This impressive film opens up to a beautiful vista of open grazing land and we're introduced to our primary characters in Boss (Robert Duvall) and Charlie (Kevin Costner) who are free grazers, which are cowboys who drive their herds on the open plains. Along with them are two younger cowboys in Mose (Abraham Benrubit, "ER) and Button (Diego Luna). When they find they need some additional supplies, they send Mose back to the last town they came through and when a couple days go by without his return they decide that they must go back to find out what happened to him. Not long after they arrive in the small western town they find that Mose had been in a fight and was brutally beaten despite having dished out some to his attackers as well. They're warned away from the town by a local rancher who has the sheriff under his belt... What follows from there is, for the better part, a melodramatic western with an exhilarating ending that is particularly captivating. I highly recommend this film to any and all fans of the western genre! {ssintrepid} Special Features: -Audio Commentary with Kevin Costner
-"America's Open Range" A historical journey back in time to the real open range of the 1800s, narrated by Kevin Costner
-"Beyond Open Range" Director's Journal
-Deleted Scenes
-"Storyboarding: Open Range"
-Music Video Montage
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Western
Review: Abe Benrubi, who plays the ill-fated Mose, was my son Steve's best friend at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis. That said, I'd still love this movie even if Kevin Costner hadn't had the wit to cast Abe in the role.
I saw this in a theater and was eager to own it and see it again when it was released in DVD. It has the most acoustically satisfying gunfight I've ever seen/heard in a film. If you have a home theatre sound system, give the neighbors fair warning and crank it up for the shoot-out. It'll have you cheering!
This film was Costner's project from the get-go and the supplemental material in the DVD package gives an impressive account of the care that went into the making of the movie. If anyone ever doubted Costner's grit, watch the "making of" segment and pay close attention to how he kept working despite a ruptured appendix.
Costner and Robert Duvall turn in thoroughly believable performances and the wardrobe people came up with the best cowboy hat I've ever seen for Costner's character.
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