Posted: 08/16/2003

Open Range

(2003)

by Hank Yuloff

Costner in Baseball and Costner in Westerns — here’s another flick that shows why he’s great in these two genres.

What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong. It’s been that way for hundreds of years. As our society has progressed technologically, our lives have been made easier, but the basic truth of right and wrong has always been the same.

In that way, Open Range is a story that could have been told in any time period, but Actor/Director Kevin Costner has chosen 1882 as the year and placed the story on the less civilized side of the Mississippi River so that would make this movie a “Western.” And it is a Western like none we have scene for awhile.

The title refers to the time when cattle were driven from one point to another without regard for personal property i.e., ranches. Costner and Robert Duvall (The Apostle, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather) play Charly Waite and Boss Spearman, two open rangers who are driving their herd to market with two other cowboys. Their progress is slowed when one of their men (Abraham Benrubi playing Mose) is beaten up and jailed by some ranchers. Waite and Spearman get him out of jail, but incur the promised wrath of local rancher and town bully Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon from Gosford Park).

That wrath takes the form of Baxter’s riders who attack the open ranger camp, killing Benrubi (ER) and seriously injuring another, Button (Diego Luna from Frida). The code of the west being what it is, Waite and Spearman decide to take matters into their own hands. This will lead to the penultimate gunfight.

The other story line competing for attention is a love story between Waite and Sue Barlow, the sister of the town doctor who helps attend to Mose and Button. It takes a while to develop, but judging by the fact that Barlow is played by an actor of the caliber of Annette Bening (The American President, American Beauty), you can guess early on how it will end up.

On the subject of plot development, it should be said that Open Range takes its time in telling this story. We have plenty of time to get to know Waite and Spearman. They are each haunted by personal demons that after 10 years riding together are only being brought to the surface by the life threatening situation the two men find themselves facing.

In a recent radio interview of Costner, he said that he prescreened the movie, something he rarely does for fellow actor Michael Jeter. A very short while later, Jeter passed away. Jeter gives one of his greatest, if not the best, performances as Percy, the livery man who is able to give Charley and Boss there best information on what’s what in town. Every moment Jeter has on screen is memorable and timeless. His acting shows Percy as a humane and very considerate man, one that offers friendship to anyone before they offer it to him. And the moments in which Jeter appears on screen with Costner and Duvall in the shoot-out scene just makes you want to love Jeter even more. In that same interview, Costner made a statement saying that he made mistakes in his career, from how he allowed some films to not go quite how he wanted to not making the rounds on Oscar night after Dances With Wolves, preferring to spend the evening with lots of his friends at a restaurant. He said he’s not sure he’ll ever get things perfect, but in respect to Jeter, he will miss him and is glad that at least once he did get it right.

Another thing the Director Costner got right was the details. We have all seen movies where the good guys and bad guys fight it out. The lead good guy is usually in the situation where he is left to fight the “best” or “meanest” bad guy at the end. In the same interview, Costner said that he always hated that because in real life, we would all go after the biggest threat first, then deal with the rest. At the beginning of the final gun sequence, Waite quickly takes care of that viewer pet peeve.

The sound of the guns is another thing that was done correctly. Each shot is extremely loud, bringing you closer into the battle. You feel the sound go right through the back of your seat. We are also treated to see things I have never seen in a Western: many of the town folk leaving town before the fight instead of lining the street to watch the action, and we also see the aftermath of the battle—what happens immediately after the fight. It was an obvious touch and I wondered why it had never been shown like this before.

Open Range opens the Academy Award hunt for the year. I am guessing best picture, sound, editing, director, and at least one acting nomination. It is a movie that you should see on the big screen to get the feeling of the sound, and the beauty of the photography on the big screen. Go see it now.

Hank Yuloff is a fan of many things Costner — Bull Durham, Silverado, and Tin Cup are three movies that always catch his eye when flicking around the dial.

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