Westerns have run their course in Hollywood. Gone are the glory days of Sergio Leone's The Man Without a Name films or Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. In the new age of film, it now seems we run years before we get mediocre films like Young Guns they seem to do enough harm to put the genre in a back room for another lengthy stay. It's not that any western produced within the past 20 years has been incredibly bad, it's just that the new generation of moviegoers don't seem to care. Kids on the street now play spaceman and aliens rather than the cowboys and Indians that we used to partake.
Then in 1985, Clint Eastwood tried again with Pale Rider, which was a moderate hit grossing in about $41 million dollars domestically. But still Hollywood did not jump on the chuck wagon to exploit the genre. Over the next few years, there were a handful of good western films (Dances with Wolves, Silverado) and a whole lot of bad ones (Trigger Fast, Bad Girls).
It took Clint Eastwood to come to the rescue again in 1992 with the critically applauded Unforgiven. The story about a retired gunslinger went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and many people, including myself, thought that the flood gates for the western/frontier film was wide open.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the local saloon years passed and no one studio seemed to greenlight any further westerns. Were there no good stores? Were they too expensive to make? Or was it simply that Schwarzenegger would just look stupid in chaps. Who knows?
One thing I do know for sure is that Kevin Costner's Open Range is one of the better westerns to be produced in many a Dakota moon. Starring Costner, Robert Duvall and Annette Bening, Open Range tells the story of two free grazers who take the law into their own hands after members of their posse are shot and left for dead. Sue Barlow (Bening) is the sister of the local doctor that cares for the harmed ranchers and soon finds herself the affection of Charlie Waites' eye (Costner). Together, they stand up to the sheriff and his local henchmen in hopes of seeking revenge for their fallen comrade and ensuring their right to free graze in the open country.
What made Open Range so unique is its honest depiction of the wild wild west. When a gun battle is about to erupt in town, the townspeople flee to the treeline rather than sit in their homes and become victims of stray bullets. And when the gun fighting begins, people actually don't get hit with every bullet leaving a gun. Even just ten to fifteen feet from each other, bullets fly by from the hands of nervous gunmen which is a far cry from the every bullet has an owner movies to which Eastwood has made famous.
Even the characters are more realistic than portrayed in most westerns. Our heroes are conflicted individuals whose actions are sometimes less than acceptable recourse. When Charlie shoots the bar mirror after being denied service, it reinforces the notion that in a lawless time, everyone just looked out after themselves and went to great lengths to see their own form of justice handed out.
Maybe most refreshing however was in the simple casting of the film. Costner and Bening as love interests are far more an acceptable possibility than having an almost 50-year old chasing down a twenty-something like we see in almost every other movie out there. And Bening, to her credit, also uses very little make-up to hide the fact that she too is in her forties. This lead to a more plausible affection, all do respect to Jack Nicholson and his harem of high school costars.
Kevin Costner had to put up a majority of his own money to get this film made, and although not a breakthrough success, the movie did make back its $40 dollar budget with a few extra coins for everyone to put back in their pockets with DVD and video rentals. However, this will do nothing to get the western back in our local theaters on a regular basis. Unless someone can produce a western with Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Keanu Reeves and Leonardo DiCarprio directed by Steven Spielberg, then I am afraid we are in for another long drought before we get to see our heroes ride into the sunset to cue the credits.
Then in 1985, Clint Eastwood tried again with Pale Rider, which was a moderate hit grossing in about $41 million dollars domestically. But still Hollywood did not jump on the chuck wagon to exploit the genre. Over the next few years, there were a handful of good western films (Dances with Wolves, Silverado) and a whole lot of bad ones (Trigger Fast, Bad Girls).
It took Clint Eastwood to come to the rescue again in 1992 with the critically applauded Unforgiven. The story about a retired gunslinger went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and many people, including myself, thought that the flood gates for the western/frontier film was wide open.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the local saloon years passed and no one studio seemed to greenlight any further westerns. Were there no good stores? Were they too expensive to make? Or was it simply that Schwarzenegger would just look stupid in chaps. Who knows?
One thing I do know for sure is that Kevin Costner's Open Range is one of the better westerns to be produced in many a Dakota moon. Starring Costner, Robert Duvall and Annette Bening, Open Range tells the story of two free grazers who take the law into their own hands after members of their posse are shot and left for dead. Sue Barlow (Bening) is the sister of the local doctor that cares for the harmed ranchers and soon finds herself the affection of Charlie Waites' eye (Costner). Together, they stand up to the sheriff and his local henchmen in hopes of seeking revenge for their fallen comrade and ensuring their right to free graze in the open country.
What made Open Range so unique is its honest depiction of the wild wild west. When a gun battle is about to erupt in town, the townspeople flee to the treeline rather than sit in their homes and become victims of stray bullets. And when the gun fighting begins, people actually don't get hit with every bullet leaving a gun. Even just ten to fifteen feet from each other, bullets fly by from the hands of nervous gunmen which is a far cry from the every bullet has an owner movies to which Eastwood has made famous.
Even the characters are more realistic than portrayed in most westerns. Our heroes are conflicted individuals whose actions are sometimes less than acceptable recourse. When Charlie shoots the bar mirror after being denied service, it reinforces the notion that in a lawless time, everyone just looked out after themselves and went to great lengths to see their own form of justice handed out.
Maybe most refreshing however was in the simple casting of the film. Costner and Bening as love interests are far more an acceptable possibility than having an almost 50-year old chasing down a twenty-something like we see in almost every other movie out there. And Bening, to her credit, also uses very little make-up to hide the fact that she too is in her forties. This lead to a more plausible affection, all do respect to Jack Nicholson and his harem of high school costars.
Kevin Costner had to put up a majority of his own money to get this film made, and although not a breakthrough success, the movie did make back its $40 dollar budget with a few extra coins for everyone to put back in their pockets with DVD and video rentals. However, this will do nothing to get the western back in our local theaters on a regular basis. Unless someone can produce a western with Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Keanu Reeves and Leonardo DiCarprio directed by Steven Spielberg, then I am afraid we are in for another long drought before we get to see our heroes ride into the sunset to cue the credits.