Despite the buckets of blood shed in the course of its 139-minute length, there's something warm and nostalgic about Open Range that fits the imagination like an old boot. A western in the classic mold, Kevin Costner's return to the genre, after Wyatt Earp and the Academy Award-winning Dances With Wolves, doesn't ask much more of its audience than to sit back and watch a pair of old-school cowpokes help a town escape the grip of a brutal despot. That, and exorcise themselves of the ghosts of a violent past.
Shot in the beautiful hills and pastures of Alberta, Open Range quickly gets to the point of its central dilemma. Costner and Robert Duvall's finely-drawn characters are driving a herd of cattle through a magnificent valley, lush with tall grass and other bovine munchies, when they're ordered to move on by a pack gunmen hired by a local rancher to keep out free-grazers. The free-grazers aren't about to bow to one man's arbitrary dictum, and refuse to leave.
Things turn nasty when the thugs viciously attack two of the trail hands. Charley Waite (Costner) and Boss Spearman (Duvall) ride into town to confront the local sheriff about this abuse of power, and naturally they are greeted with disdain and ridicule. The peace-loving settlers, while mostly sympathetic, are too cowed by the rancher's power to force the lawman to help the migratory cowboys.
As the stalemate turns increasingly violent, the townsfolk come to the unpleasant realization that they'll probably be unable to remain neutral in this skirmish between good and evil, justice and tyranny. Only the local doctor and his mysteriously single sibling (Annette Bening) willingly take a stand against the rancher (a deliciously nasty Michael Gambon), if only because they know the damage a bullet can do to a man. For their part, Costner and Duvall seem to be fighting a losing, if noble, battle against the inevitable closing of the West.
Like most other cowboy heroes, Charley and Boss are idealists. They represent the last hope for sanity, rational behavior and traditional American values in an environment ripe for Old World despotism. Bloodshed begets bloodshed, and democracy can proceed only after the smoke clears, the citizenry accepts its role in the larger society and the gunslingers can ride off into the sunset. Buy it or not, this is the fundamental formula of the genre.
Made for less than $30 million, Open Range snuck in and out of the multiplexes without garnering a lot of attention. This probably had as much to do with Costner's uneven track record as with any vast change in audience demographics in the last dozen years. Certainly, no one wanted to pay to see a repeat of The Postman or Waterworld. Ironically, the lean budget probably worked in his favor, as it forced Costner to direct more like Clint Eastwood than Oliver Stone.
The result is an entirely satisfying cinematic experience. Even if fully half of the movie was shot during a pouring rainstorm, the scenery is terrific and cinematography sharp. Combine that with crisp writing, fine acting and interesting bonus material, and you have a DVD to be savored by anyone who enjoys a good story.
Not a Bad Lay-Over
Danièle Thompson's romantic chamber piece, Jet Lag, is set almost entirely in the sterile confines of a strike-bound Charles DeGaulle Airport. I'm a sucker for Juliette Binoche, and here she plays an overly made-up beautician fleeing an abusive boyfriend. Thanks to a convenient cell phone, she meets a Puckish chef (Jean Reno) turned frozen-food magnate on his way to a funeral. As is typical of these sorts of funny valentines, the stars spend a great deal of their time trying to avoid each other before succumbing to the sting of Cupid's arrow. Beyond that, and an oddly symbolic de-layering of the make-up worn by Binoche's character, there isn't much to Jet Lag we haven't seen before. Nonetheless, it's enjoyable.
Best To Be Avoided
I've heard of lamer premises for a comedy than the one on which Marci X is based, but only a very few have been as poorly executed. Lisa Kudrow plays a painfully stereotypical Jewish-American princess who volunteers to save her media-mogul daddy's record label by trying to defuse a bomb involving a hip-hop artist (Damon Wayons). It's easy to see why Marci X sat on the shelf for a couple of years: Nothing in the movie is remotely funny. What's more, in its depiction of the hip-hop scene, the otherwise capable director Richard Benjamin and writer Paul Rudnick give new meaning to the term "clueless."
Hollywood vs. Hippies
Like most of my fellow Californians, I'm willing to give Arnold Schwarzenegger some slack, as he labors to save the state from economic disaster. In the meantime, I recommend taking a look at In Smog And Thunder, a timely mockumentary based on 120 satirical paintings by Sandow Birk. The pieces describe a fictitious Civil War between Los Angeles and San Francisco (Smogtown vs. Fogtown), cities representing the worldwide scourge of Elitist New Age Bohemians and the Sitcom-Mongering Hordes of Hollywood. Funny stuff.