Open Range Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)August 18th, 2003
OPEN RANGE
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Freegrazer Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) and his long time second hand man Charley Waite (Kevin Costner) run into the type of trouble that threatens their way of life when they send Mose (Abraham Benrubi, TV's "E.R.") into the nearest town for supplies. Harmonville is ruled by Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon, "Gosford Park") and his corrupt Sheriff Poole (James Russo, "Donnie Brasco") and they intend to deny the legal right of freegrazing in their jurisdiction. Disgusted at their injustice and the harm that has come to Mose and young Button (Diego Luna, "Y Tu Mama Tambien"), Boss decides to fight for the "Open Range."
Kevin Costner returns to the genre that won him a directing Oscar with 1990's "Dances With Wolves" and once again proves he knows his way around the Western. Costner tends towards humorless earnestness for his romantic American hero, but he has the good sense to pair himself with the gruffer, glinting irreverence of old pro Duvall.
Boss and Charley ride into Harmonville to discover what has happened to Moses and learn from stable owner Percy (Michael Jeter, "The Green Mile") that he got into a fight with four men in the country store. They find him in Poole's jail badly beaten and take him to Doc Barlow's (Dean McDermott) and Boss sees the attraction between Charley and the Doc's 'wife' Sue (Annette Benning, "American Beauty"). They head back to camp but Boss suspects that Baxter will send men to steal or drive away their cattle, so he and Charley attack first, but by the time they get back to camp, Mose and Tig, Charley's beloved old dog, have been killed and Button shot, left for dead.
Mose has a paternal relationship with his men and insists on taking Button, a fifteen year old homeless boy they've taken under their win, back to the Doc, but he's away tending Baxter's men so Sue steps in. In town, Charley saves a pup during a flood and gains a friend in Mack (Peter MacNeil), its owner, in a town that has been ordered to reject the freegrazers. Boss has a showdown with the Sheriff in the saloon, telling the townspeople of the corruption and murder Poole and Baxter engage in, and the die is cast for a shootout. Charley learns that Sue is not the Doc's wife, but his sister, and the attraction becomes bittersweet as he may be facing death the next day.
Screenwriter Craig Storper adapted "The Open Range" by Lauran Paine and it's an ode to the end of a way of life and the dying breed of the cowboy. The middle aged romance works nicely as a metaphor for last chances and endings, and Boss's back story is a sad account of the promise of better days. Boss says 'Cows are one thing, but one man telling another where they can go in this country is another' and the statement sums up the Americanness of the Western genre. Storper gets at the difference between how men interact with men as opposed to women through the openness or lack thereof of language and physically symbolizes it with a china tea set.
Duvall gives a terrific performance as a good man with a gruff exterior. He's able to get a chuckle with his pithy remarks without crossing the line into twee and he gets at the kindness and decency of the man with such simple gestures as pushing a piece of chocolate on the shopkeeper who just sold it to him. (He has overused his old man's tic of worrying his teeth with his tongue though.) Costner defers to Duvall without losing his own presence and gets at the core of the tarnished hero, although he still needs to turn down his nobility meter. His romantic chemistry with Benning is nicely restrained but felt. Benning is strong as the woman willing to speak up for what she wants, although some explanation of why such a striking woman would be the town spinster may have given her more to work with. Benrubi is a likeable presence in his short amount of screen time, making Mose's demise count. In his last role, Jeter is amusing as the freegrazers' ally, if perhaps a bit too jumpy. Gambon doesn't bring much dimension to his villain other than greedy entitlement, but Russo gets into the skin of the oily opportunistic sheriff.
Director Costner and his filmmaking team of production designer Gae Buckley ("Tin Cup") and newbie director of photography James Muro have created a visually masterful work on location in Alberta. The green and blue beauty of the hills and plains is contrasted with the dark wetness which envelops the town that would deny the freedom to work the bountiful land. Costner and Buckley acted out the climatic shootout, which engages the entire town, in order for Buckley to design the town to meet the demands of the shootout, which includes Percy acting as a lookout from the stable's second floor, the Sheriff's jail, the saloon and other buildings. We feel the pain and the dirt and the wood and the steel of the thing, just as earlier we're given a good sense of the hardships of cattle driving.
"Open Range" suggests that Costner is a better filmmaker than actor, but as long as he's shaping his own material he's made a welcome return to the screen.
B
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