|
Open RangeRating:
Release Date: 20 January, 2004 Retail Price: $14.99 OUR Price: $10.99 You SAVE: $4.00! Cast: Complete Cast (11 total) |
Open Range Reviews
A thoroughly enjoyable experience
Robert Duval sets the pace here as a trail boss with carefully chosen words and authentic grit. Costner is excellent as a younger working cowboy fleeing his wartime past. Everything seems as you imagine it would have been in the post-Civil War American West, including mud everywhere, harsh weather, and danger in all directions. Every character in this film rings true and the ending is both believable and satisfying. The photography is superb and features generous shots of natural beauty. All in all, a great movie watching experience. Sure to become a classic.
OBVIOUS MANIPULATION TO GET US TO LIKE OPEN GRAZERS
While Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall put on workmanlike acting jobs, OPEN RANGE is talky and too long. About an hour of this film should have been left on the cutting room floor. The action scenes are pretty good with the climatic action scene resembling the gunfight at OK Corral. But that scene, too, went on too long. The motivation of the ill-tempered cattleman villain is strained, the script not really justifying his over-the-top homicidal ways. We know he doesn't like "open grazers" but why does he have to be so murderous? And the idea of open grazing seems to be contrary to the idea of property rights, which leaves me cold rooting for Costner and Duvall who want to graze-out private land and move on to other spots with their herd. We are supposed to get all teary-eyed and hacked at the villains for shooting up a dog, and a kid and a child-like oaf who work for Costner and Duvall but that is too obvious manipulation to justify shooting men who are defending their grazing land and economic livelihood, albeit in a violent way. But, then, we know that some Hollywood elements would do away with private property. And why is it that the bad guys can hardly ever shoot straight except at dogs, kids and big oafs? Never can figure that out. However, it's good to see Duvall, the perfect cowboy actor, on screen even when the script has him asking the moody Costner about his emotional "history", a modern psychological term no cowpoke in 1889 would ever have uttered. The scenery is pretty and the costumes are good but Kevin should have taken the part of Bill in KILL BILL he was offered instead of making this indulgence. Two slow-draw stars.
More Customer Reviews (90 total)
You like Open Range?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Debt Relief Clearinghouse, How To Consolidate Debt, and debt consolidation loans
