Cinema Tweets@CinemaTweets1
If I asked you to rank the best American Westerns since Unforgiven, where would Open Range (🌟🌟🌟🌟) fall on your list? Depending on how you define the “American Western”, I’m guessing most of you have the Coen Brothers’ True Grit or even Tarantino’s Django Unchained near the top of your list. But believe me when I say that Open Range deserves to be in the conversation. I am blown away by the quality of this film upon rewatch. No, I did not remember this movie being this good. This is just another example of Robert Duvall’s excellence.
I like Kevin Costner. I wouldn’t say I love him. On the one hand, I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Dances with Wolves in large part because I never understood why that film won Best Picture over Goodfellas. Not only that, films like Draft Day, Waterworld and Mr. Brooks are some of the worst movies I can honestly remember watching. But in the wake of Robert Duvall’s passing, I’m starting to realize that maybe I’ve taken Costner for granted. He’s now a living, breathing piece of cinema history & has worked with some of cinema’s greatest actors, like Duvall, Sean Connery, and Gene Hackman. And upon rewatching Open Range, I now definitely think I need to show Costner some more respect.
Costner’s filmmaking is Earth-shattering here. Everything feels totally real. The attention to detail is ridiculous. Costner takes you to late 19th Century America & brings you to the countryside. I think Costner’s use of animals- whether it be horses, cattle, or especially dogs- really elevates the immersion. You can almost smell the countryside, which Costner shows us in rain, sunshine, at dawn, and at dusk. It’s utterly mesmerizing the way Costner captures the literal open range in this movie. But the filmmaking isn’t just about capturing a different time & place- it’s also about capturing combat.
Those of you who’ve seen this film before know that this movie makes all of its money & then some in the final 40 minutes. The gunfire, the shoot-outs, the hell unleashed. It’s another opportunity for Costner to show off his filmmaking arsenal. I thought the showdowns in the final 1/3rd between Costner & Duvall and basically everyone who gets in their way felt so totally real. The sound & the actual impact of the guns- the way bodies went flying once shot- was breathtaking. In other words, Costner’s filmmaking makes the first half of this film interesting while building & leading to an ultimate payoff in the final 40 minutes that’s hard to forget.
But it’s not just the filmmaking here that carries so much weight. The story is as good as the direction. I mentioned Unforgiven at the top of my review here & I think there’s a lot of the same DNA from the story itself here. Duvall & Costner play two men who, like Eastwood in Unforgiven, are capable of going to the darkest of places. Don’t push them. Don’t test them. Don’t fuck with their friends. If you do, you’ll send them back down a path that they’ve been trying their entire life to unwalk. It’s this story of restrained aggression: I have a gun & this power that I can use on anyone, but I don’t want to use it. Please, don’t force me unleash Hell on you. By the time Duvall & Costner reach their breaking point, there’s nothing on Earth that can stop them. And that’s this story’s ultimate power.
Lastly, for any of you Andor fans out there, I can’t tell you how cool it is seeing a young Diego Luna act shoulder-to-shoulder with Robert Duvall & Kevin Costner. Luna now carries the torch. He walks down the same road Duvall helped pave. It reassures me a little to know that we still have actors out there who know what real filmmaking looks & feels like. Diego Luna is one of those actors.
An unimpeachably great American Western.
