I love westerns. They dont make many these days and generally theyre not much good. But on the back of the good reviews and my dads recommendation I went to see Open Range, despite the fact I knew I was going to have one big problem to overcome: Kevin Costner.
Ill be honest: I just dont like the look of him. He looks a bit wet; a bit soppy; its something about the weak chin and that thinning batch of hair. Then there are his films: which are like syrup coated saccharine. He always seems to eulogise, sermonise or mythologise: making some hymn to the American way of life.
So, as the film began and the camera followed cattle wending their way over rolling prairie, and the portentous score boomed out of the speakers, Costner seemed to be doing everything he could, short of coming on screen himself and shouting, to say `this is elegiac. I got the horrible feeling that I was going to be inflicted with another dose of Costners sunset bathed sentimentalism.
<*dv_1*> Costner is one of a small group of cowboys working for Robert Duvalls `Boss. They make the mistake of grazing their cattle on prairie which the local land baron feels should be reserved for his own exclusive use. When one of Costners riding buddies is killed over this dispute Costner and Duvall saddle up to do what a mans gotta do, and administer some old fashioned justice. Along the way Costner gets involved in an awkward romance with Annette Bening.
<*dv_0*> Open Range is a film about principle and honour. In the middle of the prairie there is no law except your own, no judge except yourself. For these men the path you tread in this void determines the type of man you are. These themes are developed at a languid pace which gives plenty of space for Duvalls to turn in a good performance: meanwhile Costner doesnt quite convince as the man with a past, lacking the gravity or pathos to carry this role off.
Costner, who also directs, hits a few weird notes throughout the film. His main motivation for going after Michael Gambons land baron is supposed to be the murder of his friend, yet the death of Costners dog at the hand of the same killers is treated with an emotional grandiosity which is utterly absurd in the context of the story. The film also takes too long to end: taking an age to resolve the relationship between Costner and Bening after the final shoot-out.
Ultimately Open Range is rather like the cowboys it eulogises in the film: solid, it gets the job done without fuss.
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