Open Range is a western that has no concerns for running time. It moseys along, enjoys the scenery and after a bit gets around to telling a story. It is overly long and occasionally overly corny but it's heart is in the right place and it makes no excuses for what it is. This is an old fashioned western that stands out mostly for never forgetting the harsh realities of frontier life.
The movie stars Costner as gunslinger turned cowhand Charley Waite. He works for free grazing cattleman Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall). Also working for Boss is Mose (Abraham Benrubi) and Button (Diego Luna). The group stops outside a small town and they send Mose into town for supplies. When he doesn't return, Boss and Charley go looking for him. They find Mose in jail and find the sheriff in the employ of a local rancher named Baxter (Michael Gambon) with a massive chip on his shoulder. Baxter is after their herd and thinks nothing of killing off Boss's men to do it. That results in Boss and Charley heading back to town bent on revenge. They stop off at the doctor's house to drop off the badly injured Button and there Charley starts to fall for the doctor's sister Sue (Annette Benning).
Duvall turns in some excellent work here. He falls into the role of Boss so seemingly effortlessly that he simply becomes the character. He has great chemistry with Costner, which really sells the notion that the two have been riding together for a decade. Costner is quite good as well, particularly when his tough silent exterior comes unglued by the sight of Sue. Michael Jeter swipes the occasional scene, making his passing seem all the sadder.
The look of the film is simply gorgeous. It is shot to maximize the beauty of the open range. When they hit town, it is appropriately dingy and rough looking. The climactic battle is shot in a manner that maximizes the impact of every death, every bullet and the effect on every resident of the town. It is a sequence that carries a very raw dangerous feeling to it that makes it stand out as almost a reason by itself to see the film.
My main complaint is the sluggish pace of the film. It's obvious that Costner was much enamored of the photography and hated to cut any of it. As a result some scenes drag on longer than necessary and the film is littered with insert shots of ridiculous length. Couple that with a few scenes that are a bit emotionally heavy handed and it misses becoming a great film. It is however a solid film. It feels like it was populated with real people and not movie people. Charley is a killer and that bothers him. Boss is not and to some degree he admires Charley's ability to kill. In other words, these are people with morals but they aren't etched in stone. Like real people, they struggle with the grey areas between right and wrong.
Open Range is odd in that it feels old fashioned in the way that it takes its time telling a story. Even the gunfight feels unhurried without over editing. At the same time it takes a more modern realistic view of the Old West and that sets it apart from the standard westerns. Maybe Costner should stick to directing westerns. He definitely understands them and has a knack for the feel of them.
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