Open Range DVD Review:

When local rancher Denton Baxter (Gambon) doesn’t take kindly to free grazing cattle herders crossing his land and decides to send out a warning by killing one of the herders and seriously injuring another, he makes an enemy of the wrong men. Boss Spearman (Duvall) and his partner Charlie Wait (Costner) decide to forgo the law and bring their own kind of justice down on Baxter and his men.

Kevin Costner returns to the genre that brought him so many accolades and finally gives us a good movie.

Costner has only starred three really good movies since winning all those Oscars for Dances with Wolves in 1990 (JFK, Tin Cup and Thirteen Days) and his directorial follow up, The Postman was instantly forgettable, so a return to the western was really the only option to kick start his floundering career. The good news is that Open Range is Kevin back on top form.

This slow, simmering potboiler spends the entire first act and much of the second, building story and character until the pressure builds to the point that it boils over into the climatic shootout. This meandering build up is a slight hindrance in getting to the inevitable ruckus and the movie could have profited from some scenes heading to the cutting room floor but this doesn’t deter you from your enjoyment of the film.

As you’d expect from three stellar leads, the performances are first rate. Robert Duvall brings his usual class and distinction to the movie with another commanding performance. This is a character that is full of dignity and demands your respect, meaning Duvall fills those shoes exactly. The man just never gives a bad performance and this movie is no exception to that rule. Kevin Costner plays Charlie Wait as a man who believes in doing things right but is consumed by the guilt of the deeds he committed in a former life. This is a role that Costner can excel in as we see the character change from a mild-mannered cattle herder into an unyielding gunslinger. Annette Bening doesn’t appear on the big screen often enough but when she does her roles always grab your attention. Her character Sue Barlow is a strong willed woman that could have been very easily clichéd but Bening brings a certain amount of decorum and grace to the role making her that much more believeable.

The support is also good with Michael Gambon playing a good villain and the late Michael Jeter proving the comic relief. Young Mexican actor Diego Luna continues to show the promise that was so abundant in the 2001 indie hit “Y tu mamá también”.

Open Range is an old style, by the numbers western that is a real return to form for Kevin Costner. As a director he has a real eye for the grandeur of the West and shoots it magnificently. It may be slightly overlong and slow in the first and second acts but the final show down is well worth the wait.

Star Rating = * * *

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the transfer is very good, as you’d expect from a modern movie. The extremely sharp picture brings out the best in the magnificent cinematography of the film as the grandeur of the open plains engross the screen. The Dolby Digital soundtrack does a great job emphasising the dialogue but comes into its own during the sweeping orchestral score and the climatic gunfight.

BONUS FEATURES

Director’s Commentary
Kevin Costner talks passionately about a film that is very close to his heart. The reveals how the production tried to capture the feeling of the final years of the frontier and how he intentionally spent a lot of time building up the story and characters before he threw you into the climatic confrontation. He discusses the gunfight in depth, revealing secrets behind the shooting of the event and how he personally thinks that the shotgun shot through the wall is the best gunfight “kill” ever put to screen. He also says that if this were his last movie, he would be extremely happy.

America’s Open Range (12.44 mins)

Narrated by Kevin Costner, this featurette looks back at the actual era in which the movie was set. Featuring images from the time taken by Evelyn Cameron, a famous photographer from the frontier, and reading of accounts of the era from people like Theodore Roosevelt, this is an interesting insight into late 19th century America and the people of the Open Range.

Deleted Scenes
These twelve deleted scenes entitled “Send Mose to town”, “River Camp Fire”, “Tracking Mose”, “Mose’s story”, “Watching from Jail”, “Toss jail keys”, “Wife & child”, “Rip it down”, “Charlie and the dead man”, “Baxter kills Bill”, “Livery” and “Cemetery” are accompanied by explanations of why they were cut from the final print by Kevin Costner. Highlights include the brilliantly shot “tracking Mose” scene and Charlie looking very evil as he goats the dead man.

Storyboarding Open Range (6.36 mins)

Storyboard artist David J. Negron Jr. takes you behind the scenes of the preparation for Open Range. He reveals the different storyboarding techniques he employed working on the movie such as traditional hand drawn boards and computer enhanced drawings. There are also onscreen comparisons between the storyboards and the actual finished scenes.

Broken Wagon (Music Video) (4.24 mins)

A montage of behind the scenes footage accompanied by a song from the movie.

OVERALL

Kevin Costner’s best film in years receives a great DVD treatment from Universal. While more behind the scenes features would have added to the value, the excellent commentary track and informative featurettes more than make up for this shortcoming. This is a must buy for all Western fans and an extremely good rent for everyone else.

DVD Star Rating = * * *

Jamie Kelwick

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