It makes me sick to even waste the time on this write-up, but it's in my generous nature to protect those innocent & unwitting souls who are thinking of renting this film tonight.
Open Range is a joke. I found it painful and embarrassing that I shared my
living room with Costner and Duvall. For the first hour, you will simply watch two actors rehearsing their lines on location.
(Luckily, the location is breath-taking southern Alberta, and cinematographer James Muro deserves credit for lingering over my province's open skies and
rolling contours with painterly dedication.)
The last half of the movie offers a mildly exciting gunfight, but then spirals into a cardboard romance that makes Anakin & Padme look like Bogie & Bacall.
Craig Storper's screenplay lacks the character and detail that could have
elevated Open Range above the archetype. You will scratch your head over
specifics like the Great Dog Rescue, Annette Bening's disappearing accent, and the cookie-cutter romantic subplot. You will wince at the majority of the
dialogue. You will then plummet into madness as Costner slowwwwwly focuses
his lens on details insignificant to the story. While a tale of this nature could be wrapped up in `High Noon"'s 84 minutes, Costner allows himself a soul- destroying 140 MINUTES. Gentle video renter, try to remember Waterworld and
The Postman. How many times will you allow Costner to insult you?
Mustachio-Twirling Corrupt Lawmen? Check. Big Solemn Pronouncements?
Check. Cornball. Cliched. By-the-numbers. So then why did Open Range
gross $58 million in its 16-week run?
My theory is that critics and the public saw the film as a potential revival of a genre which had lain mostly dormant during the past dozen years. Finally,
Hollywood was opening up the Old West once more as prime movie territory.
People forget, however, what WAS released all those dozen years ago.
Unforgiven is the definitive, quintessential, prototypical, archetypical, last, best western. There is a REASON why Hollywood has released no westerns of note
since 1992. There is simply no need. Nothing more can be done with the genre since Clint, Hackman, Freeman & Harris lit it up in that year's Oscar winner for Best Picture. There are not enough superlatives for Unforgiven; just let it be said that Eastwood's epic is the bookend for the genre.
Open Range just can't compete. Not only is it a bad movie, but following - and sharing the shelf with - a work like Unforgiven, it's inherently flawed for even being CONCEIVED. Open Range is a parody, by a pretender who wants to
cash in on the work of the masters.
Open Range is a joke. I found it painful and embarrassing that I shared my
living room with Costner and Duvall. For the first hour, you will simply watch two actors rehearsing their lines on location.
(Luckily, the location is breath-taking southern Alberta, and cinematographer James Muro deserves credit for lingering over my province's open skies and
rolling contours with painterly dedication.)
The last half of the movie offers a mildly exciting gunfight, but then spirals into a cardboard romance that makes Anakin & Padme look like Bogie & Bacall.
Craig Storper's screenplay lacks the character and detail that could have
elevated Open Range above the archetype. You will scratch your head over
specifics like the Great Dog Rescue, Annette Bening's disappearing accent, and the cookie-cutter romantic subplot. You will wince at the majority of the
dialogue. You will then plummet into madness as Costner slowwwwwly focuses
his lens on details insignificant to the story. While a tale of this nature could be wrapped up in `High Noon"'s 84 minutes, Costner allows himself a soul- destroying 140 MINUTES. Gentle video renter, try to remember Waterworld and
The Postman. How many times will you allow Costner to insult you?
Mustachio-Twirling Corrupt Lawmen? Check. Big Solemn Pronouncements?
Check. Cornball. Cliched. By-the-numbers. So then why did Open Range
gross $58 million in its 16-week run?
My theory is that critics and the public saw the film as a potential revival of a genre which had lain mostly dormant during the past dozen years. Finally,
Hollywood was opening up the Old West once more as prime movie territory.
People forget, however, what WAS released all those dozen years ago.
Unforgiven is the definitive, quintessential, prototypical, archetypical, last, best western. There is a REASON why Hollywood has released no westerns of note
since 1992. There is simply no need. Nothing more can be done with the genre since Clint, Hackman, Freeman & Harris lit it up in that year's Oscar winner for Best Picture. There are not enough superlatives for Unforgiven; just let it be said that Eastwood's epic is the bookend for the genre.
Open Range just can't compete. Not only is it a bad movie, but following - and sharing the shelf with - a work like Unforgiven, it's inherently flawed for even being CONCEIVED. Open Range is a parody, by a pretender who wants to
cash in on the work of the masters.