Hey folks, Harry here with another, less favorable, look at Kevin Costner's attempt at another western. OPEN RANGE. This time we have a writer named Webster that seems to have some pacing problems, some unfortunate dialogue issues and he seems to think there are way too many close-ups of a dog. Hmmmm... I wouldn't call Costner a dog... Just kidding. Anyway, here's his review, but keep in mind, this is EXTREMELY EARLY in the film process and Team Costner will be honing this film down and doing everything in their power to make this as strong a film as possible. Costner really needs this film to work right now, I'm confident he'll do what is necessary.
Dear Harry,
Longtime reader, first-time reviewer. Just read Mr. Northwest's review of "Open Range," so I thought I’d share my two bits with you.
At this stage in his once-thriving career, I don’t know if too many people care that Costner has returned to the genre of his greatest triumph, the Western, but I had the chance last Wednesday in Pasadena to see if "Open Range" was a return to the grandeur of "Dances With Wolves," or if "The Postman" had rung twice instead.
Based on a 1990 novel, "The Open Range Men," by Lauran Paine, the movie (set in 1882) gets off to a plodding start, with a poker game between Charley (Costner) and his free-range buddies Boss (Robert Duvall), Mose (Abraham Benrubi), and the ludicrously named Button ("Y tu mamá también’s" Diego Luna) over a protracted credits sequence. Boss is the boss of the operation, Charley his riding partner of 10 years. They send Mose back to the nearest town for supplies, and when he doesn’t return after several days, Boss and Charley set out after him. Complications ensue, and before long, one of our four principal characters is dead, another is hanging on for his life, and Boss and Charley go galloping back for justice (or is it revenge?).
Along the way, Annette Bening is introduced as Charley’s would-be love interest, a nurse in the law-forsaken town that beckons Charley and Boss. She’s not exactly given Oscar-caliber dialogue to work with, but she emerges mostly unscathed, as does Duvall, who really is the only thing worth watching in this film.
While it may be too late to salvage the dialogue (noting that the pair have been riding together for 10 years, Duvall remarks, "People call that a decade"), Costner needs an editor. Badly. As my girlfriend observed, there are way too many beating-off scenes of the landscape, as well as more close-ups of a dog (Charley’s mutt) than in any movie since "Benji the Hunted." The whole enterprise—which leads to an admittedly crowd-pleasing showdown against the baddies (led by scenery-chewing Irish immigrant Michael Gambon) at somewhere around high noon—feels like three hours, though it’s closer to 2 1/2.
"Open Range" has the look and feel of an old-fashioned Western, with a few touches of violence that might be a little out of place in the pre-Peckinpah era. But the overall enterprise has a been-there, done-that feel to it, an anachronism in an era of franchise films, and hardly the comeback vehicle Costner must have envisioned.
Call me Webster.
