The death of the Western has been greatly exaggerated. It’s just been taking a break for a while as it waits for an appropriate updating. Recent installments such as American Outlaws tried to be revved up rocker cool instead of laid back cowboy cool. They were more action flicks on horses than they were full-fledged Westerns, thus alienating longtime Western fans. Enter Kevin Costner’s meditative Open Range, an old-fashioned cowboy movie that sticks to the genre’s roots with a little jigging and tweaking to remain relevant for current audiences.
Boss (Robert Duvall) and Charley (Costner) are a couple of old-time cow pokes. They’re free grazers, a dying breed of cattlemen who take their herds around the countryside to feed off the open land rather than settling down on a farm. But corporate early America is opting for the more profitable farming system where a couple of very rich folks buy up all the land and in turn hold all the power. Guys like Boss and Charley are no longer wanted. So when the pair find themselves in a battle not only for their livelihood but their lives, Boss and Charley are willing to stick around and fight. That’s honour, after all.
Much of the film is devoted to the inevitable fight that’s going to pit the wise Boss and his mysterious partner against money-man Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon) and all of the hired hands he has in his pocket. Boss and Charley both spend a good amount of time pondering the past, their regrets and what they might do should they actually survive the battle. As they do so, the two slowly begin to win over a town’s respect, one that appears to be tired of living under the scepter of money equaling power.
With their roles, Duvall and Costner look like they have honour and pride oozing out of their pours. These guys are old-school idealistic cowboys who live by a mysterious unspoken code that dictates their principles, actions and motivations. They ride on horses. They don’t mind the slower parts of life. They are men of the land, nomads moving with the herds. To this end, Open Range is like a Western of yesteryear. But there’s also a very contemporary feel to the themes the film covers. The most notable is the argument against corporate power stemming from greed and the almighty bottom line. Open Range sides with the little guy, whose equivalent today would be the thousands of people who have lost good chunks of their life savings through corporate scandals and cover-ups.
The prairie locales are stunning with the weather adding a whole separate dimension to fight with. The plentiful storms are the real thing are force everyone to dig down and work hard. They may get dirty during the day, but after the sun begins to set and the natural beauty radiates through the flat fields it all seems worth it. But then again, I might not be the most impartial judge of the film’s beauty seeing as how much of the filming was done not far from the place I call home.
Even the gun fights have a beauty about them. When someone gets shot, they don’t fall straight to the ground. Instead there’s something more realistic going on. The bodies fly according to the caliber. This might not be the most novel approach in the world but it’s not done enough and with restraint. When you see this technique used in a lot of action films, bodies go flying clear across the room. The focus here is more sensational and also looks to surrounding actions such as background explosions and the screaming of the victim.
Although I feel strongly for much of Open Range, it’s not without its flaws, particularly towards the end. Even after all of the gun smoke has cleared, the film continues to ramble on and on. Nothing significant is said that couldn’t have been summed up in a couple of lines of dialogue. But Costner goes for something a little more pretty and poetic. The problem is that by this time I was starting to notice that two full hours had gone by and my seat was getting a little uncomfortable. So when someone’s talking in flowery language, I’m not listening as much as I would have been earlier in the movie. But since everything made sense even without much memory of the final minutes, I doubt I missed much.
So now the Costner of old is back, and like Boss he’s wiser, smarter and a little more cynical to boot. Open Range has the feel of something that was made with great passion. That best explains its simplicity and beauty as well as the flaws that flare up from time to time. A work of love often has some great stuff as one’s heart is being poured into it. Yet, at the same time, when something doesn’t work as well as it should, it’s harder to look at it objectively. In this case, Costner can get away with it because of his ability to bridge the Western genre and make it relevant to a crowd today.
Open Range Gallery
Trailer
