• Post category:Movies
  • Post last modified:January 21, 2018

Open Range

NO PLACE TO RUN. NO REASON TO HIDE.

Four freegrazers run afoul of a landowner (Michael Gambon) who kills one of them and incapacitates another; the remaining two (Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner) aim for revenge. Costner’s comeback in the directing chair has a story that could have been lifted from any old horse opera… but the director takes his time telling it and enjoys portraying the day-to-day lives of the freegrazers in a realistic way. The landscape is vast and beautiful and in the end we’re rewarded with the obligatory showdown where Costner shows that if need be he can pump up the volume. Annette Bening has an underwritten part, but Duvall is superior in an equally authoritative and sensitive role.

2003-U.S. 138 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced byĀ Kevin Costner, Jake Eberts, David Valdes. Directed byĀ Kevin Costner. Screenplay: Craig Storper. Novel: Lauran Paine (ā€œThe Open Range Menā€). Cinematography: James Muro. Cast: Robert Duvall (Boss Spearman), Kevin Costner (Charley Waite), Annette Bening (Sue Barlow), Michael Gambon, Michael Jeter, Diego Luna.

Last word:Ā “I’m glad I was able to show the movie to Michael Jeter, before he died in March. He plays the local coot who sides with us. He’s very much in the mode of the Walter Brennans and Ward Bonds. Cooper and Stewart and Wayne, they just wouldn’t act without those guys. They needed them to do the dance. You need a scene where somebody whoops and hollers, and the heroes can’t do that, so you need the whiskery old guy to do the dance.” (Costner, RogerEbert.com)

 

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