Open Range (2003)

	Directed by: Kevin Costner	COUNTRY USA GENRE Western NORWEGIAN TITLE Open Range RUNNING TIME 139 minutes
	Produced by: Kevin Costner Jake Eberts David Valdes
	Written by (based on a novel by Lauran Paine): Craig Storper

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Boss Spearman	Robert Duvall	½
Charley Waite	Kevin Costner	½
Sue Barlow	Annette Bening	½
Denton Baxter	Michael Gambon
Percy	Michael Jeter
Button	Diego Luna	½
Sheriff Poole	James Russo
Mose	Abraham Benrubi
Doc Barlow	Dean McDermott

Review

Open Range is a beautiful, slow-moving western with all the familiar genre characteristics. Kevin Costner stars and directs with a peculiar lack of appetite for stretching himself. A slow presentation, typical characterizations, and clichéd romance lay the foundation for an oddly unambitious film from a creative point of view. The result is a film that takes a while to reveal itself as what it is: a solid and engaging piece of craftsmanship. There's little new under the sun, but with the right tools, Costner is able to deliver a genre film similar to those the studios profited greatly from during Hollywood's Golden Age.

One of the main instruments of the classic western was typecasting. Robert Duvall has had a quite diverse and versatile career, but in Open Range, Kevin Costner deploys him most shamelessly in a role the veteran can do with a blindfold. Remarkably, just as you're about to ask yourself how Duvall possibly can offer any novelty to the role of a seasoned and just but tough cowboy in his umpteenth outing, he grows into the part as naturally and engagingly as a grandfather would when telling his best story for the hundredth time. Duvall's integrity, honesty and sheer class help yank you a hundred plus years back into a conflict that may not be remarkable, yet feels heartfelt and encompassing.

Kevin Costner's directorial style hasn't changed much since he made his first film, Dances With Wolves, in 1990. His slow and deliberate storytelling can be overwhelming when it works, or fall completely flat when it doesn't. Both as an actor and a filmmaker, Costner wants to be whatever Clint Eastwood wants to be; the two are interested in the same historical periods of American history and seem to express the same range of emotion in similar types of characters. It wouldn't be fair to say that Open Range is Costner's Unforgiven – it's not that scrutinising or challenging – but it does have many of the same strengths as Eastwood's masterpiece. They are both based on the classic western, updated with an increased sense of realism, and underlined with an utter respect for both their cinematic and narrative heritage.