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This is part 1 in a series in which, for reasons not really clear, I watch all watchable movies with Kevin Costner. And maybe even some unwatchable ones. I will then comment on them here for you, including a synopsis in case you aren't familiar with them.
Synopsis: "Open Range" is a classical western, in which Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner play hardened veteran cowboys Boss and Charlie. Their merry band is reinforced by two younger cowboy apprentices (including a young Diego Luna). A local rancher, who sees himself on the up and the "free-grazing" cowboys as relics of a bygone age tries to kill them and steal their cattle. He's partially successful, but Charlie and Boss strike back and kill the bad guys in an epic shoot-out, in which the townspeople start taking their side.
Analysis: This is a really old-school movies. There are very manly men, and the only woman of note is of course a doctor. But she's tough as nails, so she totally understands Costner has to murder the shit out of everybody.
The movie is stuffed full of gruff comments about life being hard and people that need killing, but at the same time, Costner (who's also directing) keeps a tight focus on the fact that violence is bad and that our heroes would rather not kill people. A theme that is heavily emphasized is that you don't kill your opponents if you can help it and not at all when they're down, which further complicates a mission that's really in no need of complication for the heroes.
This admirable restraint on violence on one hand is counter-balanced on the other hand by the fact that the violence our heroes mete out is consistently framed as just and manly. The aspect about justice is nothing extraordinary; after all, this is a classic revenge story at heart, and those don't work if presented with the Costner-y straightness on display here. The characters are likeable enough and the antagonists villainous enough that this conceit carries the movie.
More problematic is the gendered quality of the violence. When the first attempt to rally the townspeople into fighting with them fails, Costner's Charlie snarls at them: "You're men, aren't you?" The answer is a very sensible "I didn't raise my sons to see them shot", but this goes out of the window in the final shoot-out, reinforcing the message that vigilante justice by straight and upright men is the ultimate answer to right society's wrongs, and the fact that these guys are relics of a bygone age is not played as a deconstructing factor but rather wistfully.
This leaves me with thoroughly ambivalent feelings about the main characters and the movie's overall message where the shooting is concerned, but I feel Costner intended for this ambivalence, and I rate it as a plus.
More disconcerting is the gender dynamic between Costner's Charlie and Anette Benning's Sue. It comes with the territory that women don't have large roles to play - at least when you shoot a classic, straight Western as Costner clearly loves to - and it's good that Sue isn't relegated to being threatened, a damsel in distress and generally elevated away from the violence.
She's under no illusions (helped massively by the age of the characters involved; it's really refreshing to see a middle-aged woman consistently framed as desirable) about the nature of the world in general and their little town in peculiar.
What strikes me most, however, is the thoroughly conservative idea of the woman as the healer of man's soul. The role Sue has to play in the plot is to basically take on Boss' responsibility of taming the killer inside Charlie, allowing him to live a live within society instead of - as with Boss - at the periphery of it.
And yes, sure, taming violent minds is admirable and all, but in the year 2020 it's still a bit galling to see this framed as a straight-up romance. When you consider the violent nature and general asocial tendencies of Charlie, it's hard to imagine the resulting marriage to be successful, and easy to imagine him devolving into a wife-beater fast. But the movie is thoroughly optimistic about this, so I choose to be as well.
Another thing that "Open Range" excels at is to make a statement about the nature of the West and the Frontier and the men that live in it. Violence is never far from their hearts, and they're outsiders, not able to tolerate much company, not even their own. Charlie is a traumatized veteran of the Civil War, and he has "a knack for killing", as he confesses to Boss one night. The latter also is a troubled soul who prefers cattle to people most of the time.
This feeds well into the deconstruction of the Open Range mythos. The days in which free people roamed a free land are presented as far-gone, and there's a shadow of doubt lingering over the movie about whether they ever existed, with the existence of the land's previous inhabitants only hinted at, but hinted at, it is. Now it's over and a new breed of villain takes over. Classical story, but well executed, and with just the right twinkle of nostalgia.
One last thought on the visuals of violence: the shootings are shot without glory. It's messy, people are missing, bystanders are threatened, and people die slowly, even if hit multiple times, but die they do. The question of what to do with foes that you only wounded comes up several times, and the impact of bullets can be felt. Charlie also takes care to factor in the psychology: he and Boss are prepared for violence, but many of their adversaries are not. This also helps to explain how they survive the more than uneven odds. Our heroes are trained killers, and most of their opponents are no more than boys filled with ideas of manhood. That our main characters incorporate the exact ideal these fuckers think they're living up to only complicates the picture.
The verdict: Still very watchable. I enjoyed the movie quite a lot and it gives food for thought.
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