Open Range

Rating:
Summary: Worthy Of Oscars
Review: I've always liked Westerns, in part because I've never expected much out of them; great scenery, a gunfight, the good guys winning. However, Open Range is definitely not a generic Western. It satisfies on the level of great dramas. It is one of the best films I've ever seen, Westerns and otherwise.
The plot is recognizable; open rangers(cattlemen who freely graze their beef from place to place) in competition with established , one-place ranchers. One powerful rancher running and owning the local town, nothing unusual, plot-wise. This film's greatness lies in the superb, understated acting by Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, and Annette Bening. The dialogue is sparse, but every word, glance, and inflection is just right. It reminds me of Kurosawa at his best. The characters are honest and absolutely believable. When one of the small group of open rangers is murdered, Duvall and Costner simply go into town to get Justice. Of course, there's a showdown, but even that is honest(with rapid shooting of a pistol, most shots do miss).Ms. Bening, without make-up, never looked better. Her farewell to Costner, while not being sentimental, will break your heart. The over-riding theme of true loyalty, with all the consequences it entails in such a deadly setting, makes you wish that you had friends who would be at your side, in your corner, no matter what. It's that kind of friendship and loyalty, so wonderfully presented in this film, that makes it worthy of Oscars. It's a once-in-a-decade film. I look forward to its release on DVD. Watch it, and you will be filled up.

Rating:
Summary: Like watching grass grow- predictable & boring!
Review: I won't spend a lot of time here because the film is not worth the time. It's disjointed, rambling, boring, predictable and illogical, however my wife liked it and I reaped the fringe benefits of sitting through this 'chick flick'. ;-)
The cinematography was good but the story line was grazing somewhere off with the herd. It would have made a better 1/2 hour tv show (because it would have been about 1 1/2 hours shorter!). If you must watch it wait 'til it comes on cable.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Western.., Almost to the End
Review: There's a Chuck Wagon full of Old Westerns in Kevin Costner's Open Range. But there's very little room in the buggy for love interest Annette Bening.

The movie's good for a helluva while. Its pretty good even with the goofs at the finish. The Movie needs a strong ending to make it a classic, the equal of Eastwood's Unforgiven. Instead, Director Costner started toying with the screenplay to pay off a love story too undeveloped to insert at the end. And the shootout is a touch gimmicky to convince an audience reared on the realism of the Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy, the two films that together nearly sunsetted the Western Genre in 1969.

It was as if Grace Kelly had to explain to Coop why she killed Frank Miller. She didn't have to of course. Costner should know better than to waste a lot of time courting Annette Bening. Coop would just drive the buggy up to the Doctor's House, look for a long moment into her eyes, like he did Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon. Bening would then hop in the buggy and go anywhere in the world with him.

Costner had a nearly perfect Western before the gimmickry at the end made it less so. The Movie is still very good.

Onscreen at the beginning are the reincarnations of John Wayne, Monty Clift, and Walter Brennan as Tom Dunson, his adopted son Matt, and his pard in the Texas Cattle Business, Groot Nordine, imported intact from Howard Hawks' 1948 Red River.

Only Costner added a big lummox of a guy to the group making it four men. An extraordinary Robert Duvall is Boss, the only name he's known by, and Costner is his main trailhand. The Four of them graze cattle on Open Range at a time when the Cattle Barons are treating these "free- grazers" little better than the Nesters in Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage.

British actor Michael Gambon is the Cattle King who owns the sheriff of the little town our heroes wander into. Before long, the big lummox, odd addition to Dunson's original trio, is beaten up and throwed in jail.

Duvall, already doing a steady impersonation of the b*llsh#t he and Tommy Lee Jones traded in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, is the talker of the two main characters. Costner, busy directing, is the strong silent type anyhow, like Coop in High Noon and the Westerner. There's a shaggy dog just like the one Brandon De Wilde had in Shane.

The film is slow and deliberate like many classic Westerns. In a late sequence Duvall double-barrel shotguns one of Gambon's gunhands almost exactly as Jack Palance took out Elisha Cook Jr. right in front of the saloon in Shane. This time Duvall puts a big hole in the building but the body flies as far and as fast as Cook's body flew while laughing Jack looked on in Shane.

Slow and laconic, Open Range is perfect for a long time. The trouble is there isn't much room for a romance between the Doctor's sister and Costner whose screen name is an inside joke: Postelwaite, the real name of an extraordinarily gifted British character actor. In a sample of the kind of comedy that Butch, Sundance and Screenwriter Albert Goldman introduced in George Roy Hill's 1969 film, Costner and Duvall admit to one another their real names, when they need to be rapidly shoving cartridges into Colts and Winchesters instead.

The Classic Western calls for a lone gun to ride into town, encounter trouble, give some minor lip service to a romance with either Linda Darnell or Katy Jurado, shoot up the bad guys, then ride out the Stoic Westerner, with a sidekick if he has one.

But its a little crowded for a sweetheart in the Buggy if a major star like Robert Duvall is already there with Costner as he is in Open Range. With "Queer Eye on a Straight Guy" a hit tv show, maybe its not such a crazy idea after all: Van Heflin, Jean Arthur and Alan Ladd riding off into the Sunset together, at least leaving Brandon De Wilde and the dog behind.

This film is very good before the last twenty minutes. I think I could have written a better ending myself. Anyone who knows what a box canyon, a cayuse, and who the hack knife gang is.., could have provided a better closing. In the last frame Duvall and Costner simply slow-mo quickly out of the white frame and the credits roll.

Eastwood needn't worry. John Ford and Howard Hawks needn't stir in their graves. But Open Range is a nice Western.

...

Rating:
Summary: Costner Revive's The Western AGAIN!!!
Review: In 1990 a gentleman named Kevin Costner single handedly revived the long dead western genre with "Dances With Wolves" becoming the 1st western in 60 years to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. This inspired the Academy to also award another western 2 years later ("Unforgiven"). After that there was a wave of new westerns. Some great (Wyatt Earp), some good (Tombstone) and some awful (American Outlaws & Texas Rangers).
Fast forward to 2003 and here comes another Costner western. While this one should not win Best Picture it should definetly get a nomination and if you look on the horizon there are 2 more big budget westerns coming out this year (The Alamo & Cold Mountain). Way to go Kevin for continuing to bring a great genre back to life!

Rating:
Summary: Charlie Waite the way a Real Man should be
Review: This Movie to me rated in the top five,as one of the best movies that I have ever seen,in my 55 years of watching movies.
The movie made me wish that I could have lived the life that the main character Charlie Waite lived.
In the movie to me Charlie was a free man to do what ever he liked be a cow hand,or go any place he wanted.
Charlie was the kind of Man that stood up for what he believed in and didn't take any bull from anyone.
The gun battle looked and sounded real.
We need more good Westerns like Open Range

Rating:
Summary: A Huge Disappointment
Review: Buoyed by what I had read and heard about this movie from critics, pundits, and TV talking heads, I couldn't wait to see the latest "Great Western." The minute OPEN RANGE hit the cinema in my little corner of the prairie, I was there, waiting to soak up everything from the cow chips to the gunsmoke.

What a disappointment. Instead of being entertained, I sat through 150 minutes of a cliched, tired, and ultimately boring story--a story as slow as molasses in the winter time. Equally frustrating was the film's complete lack of originality, as it plucked plots from "Unforgiven," "High Noon," "Pale Rider," "Tombstone," and a host of other Westerns. If this film was a dog (and it was), it would be the biggest mongrel in the pound.

Kevin Costner mopes and mutters through his role as an open range cowpuncher with a troubled past, while Robert Duvall more or less revives the character of Augustus McCrae from "Lonesome Dove." The climactic "gunfight"--while impressive--is over the top, and requires a titanic suspension of disbelief. And I'm still trying to figure out Annette Bening's role in this movie. In fact, I'm still trying to figure out why I didn't get up and leave the theater. Had to be the buttered popcorn.
--D. Mikels

Rating:
Summary: One of the year's best
Review: It is with great pleasure that I take a few moments to praise and defend Costner's "Open Range." ...

We did not always go to movies to be bombarded with explosions, shootouts and Will Smith one-liners. There was a time when not all movies were sequels. Kevin Costner knows this. He may be punished for it at the box office, but his "Open Range" is a film that does not pander to 20-year-old boys who consider stupidity a reason to see a movie.

"Open Range" is not boring at all. It is involving. It has an actual screenplay with a beginning, middle and end. It pays homage to Western traditions without wallowing in them. It has movements and themes, and does not set up a single situation without resolving it. It is beautifully shot and skillfully directed by a man who understands and cares about the epic style. It is funny, dramatic and philosophical. You know, all those things that "The Hulk" wasn't.

There are no special effects in this movie, not on a "Matrix"/"Star Wars" level. Perhaps that baffles some people. Here is a movie that depends on characters and mood. I loved every minute of "Open Range;" it was everything I'd been hoping it would be. The sold-out audience I saw it with also seemed deeply appreciative of Costner's willingness to tell a story without the usual bells and whistles.

The movie also depends on acting. Duvall deserves an Oscar nod, and Costner and Bening were also outstanding (Costner, especially). People say the romance felt forced; I felt it was integral to the Costner character's essential dilemma.

Look, Costner has been in some bad movies. He made a real stinker back in 1997. Show me a movie star who doesn't have a bomb on his resume. "Open Range" is a terrific movie and I look forward to the DVD release.

Rating:
Summary: great new western
Review: I'd probably give the film a 4 and a half star rating if that were available but hey, need to encourage anybody who makes a decent western these days. And this film is more than decent with great performances by Robert Duval and Kevin Costner. Duval has immediate crediability in any western as far as I'm concerned after the Lonesome Dove effort. And the same for Costner relative Daces with Wolves. Supporting cast is uniformly good. The scenery is beautiful, if Canadian. The story moves slowley, but to me, that mirrored the cowboy's life. Things didn't happen in quick step fashion very often. And I was happy to go along for the ride. The climatic gun battle was as good as I've seen. Only the Bennig/Costner romance didn't quite ring true to me. A little too quick, with the backdrop of all the trouble going. But there were some great moments there too, the tea serving, the picking up of mud clods, that had been drug in off the floor, and the ordering of a new set of dishes for Benning should Costner not survive the fight.
Well done I'd say. When it comes out on video I'll be adding it to my collection of westerns. And I hope to then to have a wide screen TV to enjoy it, in all its glory.

Rating:
Summary: Western for Grownups
Review: ...The ending could have been shorter...but other than that, this was ONE GREAT WESTERN, a western made for ADULTS, and its box office results show it.
It was made for 20 million dollars and has made almost 56 million ....hmmm....do you suppose the movie works?
Go see this movie, but go with an open mind, and forget the lame attempts at "action" westerns that idiots have put out over the past fifteen years.
Robert Duvall is the star of this movie....it's a bittersweet experience watching him work, wondering if he will live long enough to find another adequate western worthy of his time.
If the young punks don't like this movie, that suits me, and Mr. Costner fine. He did not make this movie for them.

Rating:
Summary: Seemingly Unending Cliche
Review: This film was a huge disappointment. Foolishly I thought it would be like "Dances with Wolves" but boy was I wrong. The characters were celluloid stereotypes that belonged more in a Mel Brooks movie than a supposed "modern epic."

What were they trying to do with Annette Benning's character anyway; was she a noble heroine or was she a desperate old maid?
And Kevin Costner's character I mean, come on people... He was like the Outlaw Josie Wales on marijuana. Hey Kevin, was that Colombian in that Cuban cigar you were smoking or what? Seriously, what Kevin Costner needs to do is not get involved with the direction/production of a film; he should just try to act and get paid his movie check.

Robert Duval's character was what kept me seated until the end (believe me I must have looked at the exit sign at least 50 times). Duval was funny and witty but not real dramatic (this gets back to the Mel Brooks thing).

You may not find this review useful and that's okay, it's not like I can call Kevin Costner and complain. If anything, wait until this comes to cable. Don't buy the DVD, PLEASE, unless you want a cool cinematic backdrop for your plasma TV because that's all this film is good for.

Cheers