By Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff Reporter
A decisive battle looms for freegrazers Charley (Kevin Costner, left), Boss (Robert Duvall, centre) and Button (Diego Luna, right), who must also conquer their own personal demons. - Contributed
KEVIN COSTNER and Robert Duvall give convincing performances as tumbleweed cowboys in the gradually taming west in Open Range. Based on the Lauran Paine novel, with a screenplay by Craig Storper, the flick is directed by Costner.
The days when westerns ruled the action film genre are long past. However, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, Open Range manages to capture what was great about the old westerns and add something more.
Open Range presents a scenario very similar to many a western. Those who were glued to Monday night Westerns on the former JBC should know the formula well. Indeed, if you have seen flicks such as Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter and Shane, you already know the basic story.
Costner's character, Charley Waite, is the essential anti-hero which has endeared such flicks to fans. Waite is by no stretch a saint, having been a gunfighter in his earlier years. However, his guns have been quiet for some time - and this time around he is on the side of right.
Waite and Boss (Duvall) herd their cattle to a quiet town, but find themselves receiving a very unpleasant welcome. The town is sufficiently small, with the essential main road where all gun battles can take place. Like the town, the scenario is typical of the genre.
The citizens, supposedly good men, find themselves in the evil grip of a power and money hungry man (Denton Baxter played by Michael Gambon). Baxter controls the town and so, in an attempt to retain the little they have, the citizens do nothing to stop him. Enter the noble strangers, armed with sufficient grit, trail dust, firepower and very deft trigger fingers to rescue them - or rather, seek their own justice.
Where Open Range departs from the stereotype is in the creation of the characters. As opposed to the anti-hero figures in movies such as Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter, the writer has not merely equated silence with complexity of character.
Time is actually taken to create interesting persons to people this flick. The time is taken to colour in the real people behind several of the standard western stereotypes, at least, those on the side of the good guys.
Duvall and Costner are very convincing in these cowboy roles. Annette Bening, who plays Sue Barlow, the essential woman who can provide the antidote to Waite's troubled mind, gives a very good performance. Additionally, there is also a well-developed romance to the movie, which adds a softer touch to the flick, though it does not water it down.
Along with a return to the western genre Open Range also brings a quieter kind of action flick. These riders of the open range deal in more concentrated violence. Unlike with the more modern heroes who dazzle the eyes and ears with guns that spit dozens of bullets a minute, rarely hitting anyone, but destroying everything around, every bullet in a western counts.
Open Range sticks with this formula. Most of the fighting takes place at the end of the flick, but it is well orchestrated and brings a great climax to the film.
Open Range should find a happy home in the hearts of those who have been longing for a new great western. It takes an old recipe and makes it bolder and richer.
