Robert Duvall brings an authenticity to his performances that puts any movie he appears in ahead of the game from the start. And when the movie is a Western, it seems that this factor is doubled. If real live Old West cowpokes weren’t the way Duvall portrays them, well… I don’t have a clue what they were like.
By casting Duvall as cattleman Boss Spearman, Kevin Costner isn’t just giving Open Range a great head start – he’s also ensuring that his own performance – as Boss’ long-time right hand man Charley Waite – will go over better than any Costner has delivered in many a year. Playing off Duvall, Costner is entirely credible as a cowpoke with a dark past. And between the two of them, Duvall and Costner ride this good-looking Western to solid success, as a story of traditional American values and the difference between justice and vengeance.
Boss is a free grazer, which means that he doesn’t have a ranch, but instead runs his cattle freely over the countryside of the 1880s American west. By this point in history, free grazers were being squeezed out by resident ranchers, who didn’t take kindly to herds arriving out of the blue, grazing the land to stubble, and then moving on. This is what brings trouble to Boss, Charley and their cowpokes Mose (Abraham Benrubi) and Button (Diego Luna) when they pass through land near the nasty Denton Baxter’s (Michael Gambon) ranch. Once Baxter sets his henchmen onto Boss’ boys, the trouble isn’t going to end easily, as Boss is adamant that no man will prevent him from making a living freely on the open range.
The story here – based on Lauran Paine’s novel – is a simple old fashioned Western. What makes it special is its realism – including a brutal climactic gunfight that doesn’t romanticize violence in the least – its understated dialogue, and the strong performances across the board. Duvall takes the lead, and the others are right there with him. Costner doesn’t seem wooden – as he is often accused – both because he plays so well off Duvall and because his character is a man of few words, which is well suited to Costner’s laconic acting style.
Open Range also benefits from excellent filming locations, good sets and outstanding cinematography by first time director of photography James Muro. While Costner has made another long film, at nearly two-and-a-half hours, and one that sometimes moves slowly, you never get the sense that the movie is dragging, in part because most of the film is devoted to building tension as Boss and Charley prepare for a big confrontation with Baxter and his thugs.
The movie’s love story subplot, which involves Charley and the local doctor’s sister (Annette Bening) is perhaps extraneous, but is handled well and helps build a strong conclusion to the film.
The greatest strength of Open Range is its credibility, from quiet and mildly humorous little moments like an accident in the midst of a rainstorm and Boss and Charley’s sharing of their real names just before the big fight unfolds, to the way it shows that people who are shot are terribly damaged, and that the aftermath of a bloodbath is a whole lot of dead men in boxes.
Costner has taken a simple story and he has told it well. Open Range is a Western that makes the genre real and relevant, regardless of the era.
Costner’s epic, as director, is one to behold, not for its 24th hour sentimental about-face, but for the existential knack it has for the pacific, the stately and the quiet.- Jon Lap
Robert Duvall brings an authenticity to his performances that puts any movie he appears in ahead of the game from the start.- Brian Webster
