MOVIE REVIEW

Open Range  (2003)

Starring: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening
Director: Kevin Costner

Rating: R

Studio: Touchstone

Release Date: 8.15.03

Review Posted: 8.15.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

Costner Rebounds with Flawed Western Opus "Open Range"

Kevin Costner hasn’t had an impressive run of luck of late. Most of his recent films, save the engrossing “Thirteen Days,” have been nothing more than unmitigated disasters. From “The Postman” to “3,000 Miles to Graceland” to “Dragonfly,” the actor’s track record isn’t exactly exemplary. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1996’s Ron Shelton golf comedy/drama “Tin Cup” to find Costner’s last out-and-out success, the time since being especially unkind to the thespian both commercially and personally.

Now he ventures back into the director’s chair for the third time with the western opus “Open Range.” While I’d like to report that the film is more akin to “Dances with Wolves” than it is “The Postman,” the reality is that the film unfortunately lies somewhere inexplicably between the two. There is a rich, satisfying drama enmeshed within the pages of Craig Storper’s (working from the novel “The Open Range Men” by Lauren Paine) screenplay, yet Costner the director can only find bits and pieces of it. What he does find, however, makes for some of the richest and most satisfyingly character-driven dramatics of the year, making the schizophrenic awfulness of the some of the rest that much more difficult to understand.

Aging cowboy Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) has been freegrazing – roaming the American west and living off the land – his cattle for a long time now, the last decade spent with near-silent partner Charley Waite (Costner) has. Also joining their small group is the burly-but-kind-hearted Mose (“E.R.'s" Abraham Benrubi) and the precocious 16-year-old foreigner Button (Diego Luna, “Frida,” “Yu Mamá También”). Together, this tight-knit group wanders the west with their herd, only making their way into local towns for supplies when absolutely necessary.

After a particularly vicious multi-day rainstorm beds them down and scatters their cattle, Boss sends Mose back to Harmonville, a small local town they passed earlier for supplies as he and the others wrangle up the rest of the herd and get ready to move out. But when the big man doesn’t return, both Boss and Charley get more than a little worried as to what has become of the big man. Leaving Button with the herd the duo head into town to try and track down their friend and get their supplies so they can take their cows and move on to dryer pastures.

Once in town the two discover Mose in jail and Harmonville under the thumb of malicious rancher Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon, “Charlotte Gray,” “Gosford Park”) and the bought-and-paid-for town sheriff Poole (James Russo, “The Ninth Gate,” “The Postman”). Baxter doesn’t take kindly to freegrazers, and he wants Spearman and his cattle gone from the territory one way or another. Taking their man in hand, Boss and Charley return to the herd expecting the worst.

The worst is what they get as Baxter’s men, while both Charley and Boss away scouting for assassins, assault the camp killing Mose and wounding Button. Taking their injured young friend into the residence of Doc Barlow (TV movie veteran Dean McDermott) and his sister Sue (Annette Bening, “American Beauty,” “Bugsy”), the duo know that justice – even if it costs them their own lives – must be had. But the line between justice and vengeance is a blurry one, and it will take every ounce of each man’s grit to make sure one doesn’t transform into the other.

Considering the lofty themes presented in Costner’s Oscar-winning epic “Dances with Wolves” (and even those attempted in the ill-fated “The Postman”), “Open Range” is a surprisingly simple affair. A moralistic fable about the nature of truth and justice in a lawless environment, the movie purports to adhere to the classic western stereotypes of honor, friendship and freedom while at the same time delving deep into the hearts of these enigmatic men.

In many ways, Costner the director succeeds at doing just this. Both Boss and Charley are amazingly well-drawn characters. At first appearing to be nothing more than just the classic strong, silent western hero archetypes, Storper’s screenplay delicately and subtly delves much deeper than that as these two friends slowly open up to one another and reveal much about their pasts as danger slowly engulfs them. It is interesting watching the walls the two have put up for their own emotional protection slowly crumble, each actor relishing the chance to play such richly drawn and complex characters to the point where both Costner and Duvall slowly disappear inside of the them.

In fact, this is the director’s best performance as an actor in ages. It’s been all-too easy in recent years to make fun of Costner for his acting prowess. In fact, his accents in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Message in a Bottle” and “Thirteen Days” are the stuff of legend, entering the pantheon of bad accents on display in a major motion picture. What people forget, though, is that his problem with accents aside, Costner can be one heck of a grand actor when he wants to be. His loosey-goosey portrayals in “Bull Durham” and “Tin Cup” are wondrous, while his earnest All-American savvy was integral to the success of the dramatic thrillers “No Way Out” and “The Untouchables.” In fact, his funny, touching, sad and emotionally uplifting performance in “Field of Dreams” might just rank as one of the best male performances of the 80’s, not a bad feat for someone so cherished in the bad accent hall of fame.

With Charley Waite, Costner has really found a role that fits him. Showing flashes of the sly humor reminiscent of his portrayal as catcher Crash Davis in “Bull Durham,” the actor also displays a quietly devastating humanity that’s long been absent from his work. I really felt for Waite, decades of non-stop killing slowly eroding his soul, this final fight with Baxter either going to be his salvation or the final step to his eternal self-damnation.

But as good as Costner the actor is, it is Costner the director that makes the best move by allowing the great Duvall the central (and top billed) role in the picture. As a character, Boss Spearman rates right up there with the actor’s best creations like “Lonesome Dove’s” Augustus ‘Gus’ McCrae and “The Godfather’s” Tom Hagen. This is an astonishingly deep and ornately veiled performance the likes of which a film critic longs to see, a stirring portrait that can only live on past the lifespan of the film in which it was given. With a career spanning over four decades and so many of just these types of performances to his resume, it is long past when Duvall should be given his due as one of America’s greatest character actors.

If only “Open Range” were as good as the performances that inhabit it. Costner the director gets so much of the film right; it is more than a shame when things go horribly and stiflingly wrong. There are moments that are so boneheaded, so beyond comprehension, I had trouble rationalizing the film was the work of just one director. Clichéd images of a dead dog and long-winded speeches about what it means to be a man are so insipidly staged and thought out I wanted to scream. What’s worse, these moments just seem to go on and on without end, almost erasing the good feelings and strong emotions generated by a scene just moments before.

It doesn’t help that Storper’s screenplay makes so many of the periphery characters nothing more than one-dimensional western stock figures. The great Gambon is relegated to nothing more than foul-tempered heavy, while the gifted Bening is stuck playing the weary woman waiting for that one good man. It is a testament to both actor’s skills that they manage to come off as well as they do, however, both investing far more time and energy into their portrayals then screenplay does in fleshing them out.

Just as I thought the whole thing was going to implode in on itself, Costner finally unleashes the guns and stages a rousing climax in and around the dusty streets of Harmonville. A cacophony of unrehearsed violence and mayhem, this battle has just the right chaotic feel as to what a gun battle of this sort must have felt like. If anything, bullets miss their mark far more than they hit, and there is a bloody repercussion to all the pandemonium the resonates far deeper than a blood-splattered flesh wound. In fact, as newly empowered residents of the town maliciously chase down and shoot a fleeing Baxter crony, the inherent humor of the scene is powerfully diluted by the look upon haggard killer Waite’s face. By bringing a forceful justice to Harmonville, has more harm here been done than good?

Unfortunately, that idea doesn’t seem to interest Costner as much as sending audiences out with the sight of Charley and Sue in loving embrace. I was hoping that the film was going to end on a coda as darkly perverse and exciting as the one presented in that scene, instead Storper’s screenplay reverts back to lachrymose cliché and Costner pours on more of Michael Kamen’s (“Die Hard,” “Mr. Holland’s Opus”) interminable score.

In the end, it’s hard to know exactly what to make of “Open Range.” So much of it is right on; from debut cinematographer James Muro’s lush visuals to Gae S. Buckley’s exquisite production design to John Bloomfield’s (“The Mummy Returns”) excellent costumes; and much of the casting so perfect; the great Michael Jeter (“The Fisher King,” “Jurassic Park III”) gets his best role in years; that I justly wanted to love this movie. And at times I did, drawn deeply into Costner and Duvall’s vivid characterizations and Storper’s emotionally complex screenplay. But so many moments rang just as clearly false as the did true that “Open Range” is nothing more than an enigma; a seemingly complex parable of the west just as clearly at war with itself inasmuch are the characters that wander the wind-swept prairies within it.

Rating: êê1/2   (out of 4)

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