Lonesome Dove Collection (Lonesome Dove/Streets of Laredo/Dead Man's Walk) (1989) Review

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(More customer reviews)LONESOME DOVE ~ This may be the greatest movie ever made. Both Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones give the performances of their careers as retired U.S. Marshals Gus McRae and Woodrow Call, and the rest of the star-studded cast shine, as well. The unique scenery of the film is absolutely breathtaking to behold. And the music . . . . . . . Basil Poledouris composes what may very well be the greatest film score of all time!! (In my opinion, the works of Mozart and Beethoven don't compare to this!) Director Simon Wincer went on to helm such fantastic Westerns as QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, CROSSFIRE TRAIL, and MONTE WALSH. I could go on forever praising this gem of a film, but there are two other movies to review. So I'll sum it up in four words: sheer and utter perfection.
STREETS OF LAREDO ~ Though it can't possibly compare to it's predecessor, this makes for enjoyable Western fare. James Garner does a great job as Captain Call, though he can't quite fill in Tommy Lee Jones' shoes. The cast is above average here, too: Sam Shepard is awesome as Pee-Eye, and no matter how brief Randy Quaid's screen time, you can't take your eyes off him. However, I found Sissy Spacek to be whiney and quite annoying. I just recently found a similarity between this and the first film, plotwise: both update old, cliched Western plots (the cattle-drive in LONESOME DOVE and the bounty-hunter-gone-after-vicious-killer here) and update them with fine form. But this sequal doesn't do it nearly as well as the first. Oh, and that whole relationship between Call and that little girl was just weird and extremely out of place.
DEAD MAN'S WALK ~Here's an idea: make a prequal to the Emmy Award-winning LONESOME DOVE. While this may work on paper, it doesn't on film. Mainly because you'd have to find actors who could successfully portray younger versions of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. David Arquette and Johnny Lee Millar just can't do that. While their performances are decent, you just can't manage to firmly believe that these two boys are Gus McRae and Woodrow Call. And who the hell made the casting decision for the younger Clara (excellently played by Angelica Huston in the first film)? She ... like few actors I have ever had to watch.Funny, though; all the lead actors are sub-par, but the supporting cast rules; F. Murray Abraham, Brian Dennehy (who is killed off far, far too quickly), and Edward James Olmos included. Though the music in this movie is good, it feels out of place. But by far the worst thing about this film is the ending; the last twenty minutes may be the most godawful I have ever seen. It totally ruins the whole dramatic impact of the actual Dead Man's Walk scene that takes place before it. This scene is without a doubt the best part of the movie, and is one of the best, most powerful I've ever seen. They should've just ended the movie after this scene, right before that final twenty minutes or so. It would've been a much better movie.
In the end, it might be a good idea to just pick up a copy of LONESOME DOVE (be sure to buy the two-disc edition, which has far better picture quality than the single-disc flipper) rather than this entire boxed set. On the other hand, it looks great on your shelf, and comes with a free copy of the soundtrack to LONESOME DOVE.
LONESOME DOVE: * * * * *
STREETS OF LAREDO: * * * 1/2
DEAD MAN'S WALK: * * 1/2

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Lonesome Dove began life as a Larry McMurtry screenplay written for the big screen, with John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda in mind for the roles of aging Texas Rangers Gus McCrae, Woodrow Call, and Jake Spoon. That too-good-to-be-true project never happened, and McMurtry shelvedthe story for some years and then revived it as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The latter was subsequently adapted for the glorious 1989 televisionminiseries starring Robert Duvall as Gus, one of the most endearing andheroic figures to come out of Old West mythology, Tommy Lee Jones as theequally noble but taciturn Woodrow, and Robert Urich as their fallen comrade,Jake. Set in the late 19th century in a sleepy Texas town, we meet Gus andWoodrow long after they put their days of settling the West behind them. Busy as cattle ranchers yet spiritually idle, the two head out on one last great adventure to set down new stakes in Montana, a journey that is fraught with terribledangers, reunions with old loves, and unexpected collisions with destiny. An exemplary and moving Western drama with magnificent performances from Duvalland Jones (and great support from Anjelica Huston, Rick Schroder, DannyGlover, and Diane Lane), "Lonesome Dove" paved the way for threesequels, two of which are in this collection. "Streets of Laredo"features James Garner this time as Woodrow Call, who is hired by a railroad company to track down a young criminal and comes face to face with his ownpast. The other is "Dead Man's Walk", a powerful prequel in which wemeet Gus (David Arquette) and Woodrow (Jonny Lee Miller) as young men and Rangers recruits, facing their first challenges together. The jewel in thecrown of this collection is the original film, but the other titles arehighly enjoyable and bring a sense of sweeping narrative to theproceedings. "--Tom Keogh"

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Lonesome Dove (1989) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've seen LONESOME DOVE so many times I've practically got the six hours of dialogue memorized. Yet I'll keep watching this excellent adaptation of Larry McMurtry's epic novel, over and over again. Why? Two words: compelling story.
The friendship of Augustus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call is the underlying theme of LONESOME DOVE; it's the motor that drives the story. When these two weathered former lawmen steal a herd of cattle from Mexico and set off for Montana for one last grand adventure ("I wanna see that country," says Call to Gus, "before the lawyers and bankers get it."), the stage is set for a Western with plenty of humor, action, violence...tragedy.
This production makes McMurtry's unforgettable characters literally leap off the page. Robert Duvall IS Gus McCrae...Tommy Lee Jones IS Woodrow Call. Both performances are so vivid and on target the viewer is transported seamlessly to McMurtry's story, a story centering around the undying loyalty and friendship of these two men.
LONESOME DOVE is a film that will entertain you, take you over the full gambit of human emotions, then after six hours leave you begging for more. Jones and Duvall lead a stellar cast in a remarkable film that has but one weakness: it has to end. And McMurtry's story is told--told so well that no other Western even comes close.

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Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones star as Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, aging cowboys and former Texas rangers and who organize a 2,500 mile cattle drive for one last great adventure in this excellent 1989 miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel. The best friends, who steal the herd from a gang of Mexican cattle rustlers, drive their herd from Texas to Montana, battling horse thieves, angry Indian tribes, and a renegade half-breed killer named Blue Duck (Frederic Forrest) on a mission of revenge. The excellent cast also includes Robert Urich as cardsharp and former Ranger Jake Spoon, Anjelica Huston as McCrae's old flame Clara Allen, Danny Glover, Ricky Schroder, Diane Lane, Chris Cooper, D.B. Sweeney, Steve Buscemi, and even a small role for author Larry McMurtry. Australian director Simon Wincer shows a tremendous capacity for balancing sweeping drama and intimacy against the gorgeous landscape of the American Southwest, giving a grandly epic feel to the film despite its small-screen target and limited budget, and for forging memorable characters of even the smallest supporting parts. The heart of the drama belongs to McCrae and Call, memorably etched by Duvall and Jones as the last of the range romantics. In the age of revisionist Westerns, this excellent cattle-drive drama nicely maintains an old-fashioned feeling while still showing the dark side of the American West. Winner of seven Emmy Awards and responsible for two miniseries sequels ("Return to Lonesome Dove" and "Dead Man's Walk") and a TV series. "--Sean Axmaker"

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Pale Rider (Snap Case) (1985) Review

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(More customer reviews)The Gold Rush in nineteenth-century California attracted all types of people seeking their fortunes. Some would settle in small mining encampments where each had their claims to search for the precious ore, but greed could encourage some to try and drive people away from their claims. Such was the setting for the 1985 film "Pale Rider", which was directed by Clint Eastwood. Located a few miles from a small town, a mining encampment includes the hard-working Hull Barrett (Michael Moriarty), a woman that he's been living with named Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgrass) and her teenaged daughter Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny). Frustrated with rising bills at the nearby country store and a greedy & wealthy man named Coy LaHood (Richard A. Dysart) who is trying to drive away the miners, Hull and Sarah's relationship is somewhat strained. After Megan prays for assistance and is reading a verse in the Book of Revelation that states "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death" (Rev. 6:8), she sees a man riding a pale horse approaching. The rider comes to be known only as "The Preacher" (Clint Eastwood) and after helping Hull out of a skirmish with some of LaHood's men, Hull invites the Preacher to stay with him, Sarah and Megan. It isn't before long that the Preacher begins to give the miners at Hull's encampment courage to stand up to LaHood and to work together. LaHood, of course, is furious that a preacher is helping them because he wants their land so that he can use his very destructive hydraulic mining technology to strip the land of whatever gold may be there. When LaHood can't buy the Preacher out of the encampment, he resorts to hiring a "marshal" of sorts named Stockburn (John Russell, 1921-1991) and his "deputies" to get rid of the Preacher. LaHood, however, doesn't know what the Preacher is capable of doing.
With excellent cinematography, interesting characters, an engaging story and good acting, "Pale Rider" is an excellent film. Other memorable characters include LaHood's son Josh (Chris Penn), Club (Richard Kiel, who is better known for his portrayal of the character "Jaws" from the James Bond films "The Spy Who Loved Me" & "Moonraker" in 1977 & 1979 respectively), McGill (Charles Hallahan), Ma Blankenship (Fran Ryan, 1916-2000) and Jed Blankenship (Richard Hamilton, 1920-2004). Memorable scenes include the Preacher's arrival, the boulder, visiting LaHood's hydraulic mine, the arrival of Stockburn and the final scenes. Overall, I rate "Pale Rider" with 5 stars.

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A nameless stranger who rides into a small California gold rush town finds himself in the middle of a feud between a mining syndicate and a group of independent prospectors.DVD Features:Production NotesTheatrical Trailer

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging) (1966) Review

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(More customer reviews)MGM released a DVD edition of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in the late 1990s, but it had few extras, a mono soundtrack, and a scratched print. Finally, MGM has given Sergio Leone's Western epic the double-disc special edition it deserves. The print is restored and as clear as I've ever seen it, the sound is now an astonishing 5.1 Surround (listen to the glass falling off Tuco after he springs through the window in the opening sequence!) nineteen minutes of footage from the Italian original have been restored, and the discs are packed with extras. Even the packaging is great: a sturdy interlocking box, with the DVDs kept in the upper and bottom parts of the two lids. Also inside the box are cards containing posters for the film in five different countries.
The film, like most of the European Westerns of the 1960s, was critically disregarded in its day. The New York Times said of it: "the most expensive, pious, and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre. There is scarcely a moment's respite from the pain." It's amazing how people missed the brilliance of this movie, which turned Western conventions upside down in such a wonderfully bizarre, European way. Now the film is considered a classic, and only Sergio Leone's own "Once Upon a Time in the West" (another great 2 DVD set, by the way) has more respect in the genre. Leone's strange style -- stretched out time, obsession with close-ups and extreme wide-shots, focus on rituals, and use of Morricone's wild and avant-garde score -- are all in full force in this tale of three treasure-seekers searching for a cache of gold coins on the Texas-New Mexico border during the Civil War. The implacable and unflappable 'hero' Blondie (Clint Eastwood), the crazy comic bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach), and the calculating immoral sadist Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) cross each other's paths amidst the senseless violence of the war. Leone perfectly contrasts the self-interested men with the greater backdrop of the tragedy of war. It's a strangely emotionally affecting picture despite its focus on three men who are detached from normal society and seem not to care about anything but money. So many individual scenes stand out for their virtuosity that the movie a parade of "greatest hits." Most astonishing of all is "The Ecstasy of Gold" sequence where Tuco dashes madly through a cemetery, looking for the grave that might hold the gold. Morricone's music here is especially overwhelming.
Chances are you've seen the film and love it. What about the new scenes and the extras?
Nineteen minutes of footage have been restored that were never shown in the American prints. The scenes integrate perfectly into the film, and after seeing them once, you won't be able to imagine they were ever missing. Among the scenes are Angel Eyes visiting a destroyed fort; Tuco hiring bandits to help him chase Blondie; Blondie and Angel Eyes having a face-to-face when they first set out together to find the gold; and some extra conversation between Tuco and Blondie in the desert. However, these scenes were never dubbed into English in the 1960s. Therefore, the DVD producers had to newly dub them. Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood do their own voices. An actor named Simon Prescott does the imitation of the deceased Lee Van Cleef. Admittedly, Wallach and Eastwood no longer sound the same, but I couldn't imagine someone else imitating their voices -- it couldn't have been done any other way. Prescott is pretty good as Angel Eyes, if a bit more gravelly.
The extras...
Disc 1 has audio commentary by Richard Shickel, a film historian who wrote Eastwood's biography and also did commentary on Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" DVD. His comments can be pretty dry, and he focuses mostly on Leone's style and techniques instead of on background information on the filming itself. Nonetheless, there are many interesting insights, and Shickel manages to say a lot during the three-hour running time.
Most of the extras are on Disc 2:
"Leone's West" -- A 20-minute documentary about the making of the film. Includes interviews with Shickel, producer Alberto Grimaldi, author of the English dialogue Mickey Knox, and best of all, Eastwood and Wallach. There's some very interesting info and memories here, mostly from Knox and the two actors.
"The Leone Style" -- A 23-minute documentary, really just an extension of the first one. It spends more time on Leone's unusual techniques. The same interviewees appear here.
"The Man Who Lost the Civil War" -- A 14-minute documentary that was produced separately from the DVD. It makes no mention of the movie, but is about its historical backdrop: the disastrous General Sibley campaign in Texas. Sibley appears in the film briefly, and this short documentary gives the viewer an important insight into the world of Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes.
"Reconstructing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" -- An 11 minute look into the painstaking work involved with fixing the picture and sound, restoring the cut scenes, and re-dubbing it.
"Il Maestro: Ennio Morricone" -- 8 minutes; mostly an interview with music scholar John Burlingame about the film's score. At the end of the feature, you can choose to listen to an audio-only twelve-minute lecture by Burlingame that provides a much more in-depth analysis of the music.
"Deleted Scenes" -- Two scenes couldn't go back into the film. The extended torture scene had a damaged negative, so here it is in its rougher state. An apparently lost scene is reconstructed through text, stills, and clips from the French trailer.
Finally, there's a gallery of posters, the original trailer, and MGM tossing in some gratuitous advertising for their other films.
Don't miss this DVD. Not only is it one of the great action films and one the great westerns, but it's the kind of release that the DVD format was invented for!

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By far the most ambitious, unflinchingly graphic and stylistically influential western ever mounted, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an engrossing actioner shot through with a volatile mix of myth and realism. Clint Eastwood returns as the "Man With No Name," this time teaming with two gunslingers (Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) to pursue a cache of $200,000and letting no one, not even warring factions in a civil war, stand in their way. From sun-drenched panoramas to bold,hard close-ups, exceptional camera work captures the beauty and cruelty of the barren landscape andthe hardened characters who stride unwaveringly through it. Forging a vibrant and yet detached style of action that had not been seen before, and has never been matched since, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly shatters the western mold in true Clint Eastwood style.
Audio: English: Mono, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio / Spanish & French: 5.1 Dolby Digital
Language: Dubbed & Subtitled: English, French & Spanish
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen: 2.35:1

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Jeremiah Johnson (1972) Review

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(More customer reviews)This movie is one of several fascinating historical threads that I have been following since I first saw it as a 12-year old and loved it. First, it is based on the actual life of a mountain man named John Johnston, later changed to Johnson, and known in the West from the mid-1840s as Liver-Eating Johnson (see the book "Crow Killer" published 1958, R.W. Thorp & R. Bunker). I did not know this until recently and assumed it was all fiction. He was a huge man for his time, 6'2" and 240 pounds in his early 20's, had fists the size of baked hams and was best in hand-to-hand fighting with his 16" Bowie knife. Thorp and Bunker based the book on first-person interviews with several mountain men and others who had known of him, including, surprisingly, the famous photographer of the 1870's West, W.H. Jackson (photographer for the Hayden Expedition and famous for the first photograph of Mount of the Holy Cross near Vail, Colorado), but the real detail being furnished by an old mountain man named White-Eye Anderson, who told the story to R.W.T. in 1941 when he was in his 90's. After Johnson's Flathead wife was murdered on the Musselshell in Montana by a band of young Crow braves, Johnson "took the trail" on the entire Crow nation. His calling card, for over 20 years of butchery on the Crows, was to remove the liver of every Crow he killed and eat it. The Crows called him "Dapiek Absaroka". Vardis Fischer, on whose book this movie is based, "borrowed" as well certain scenes from a book written in the 1840's called "Life in the Far West" by George Ruxton, a first-person account of life in and near the Colorado Rockies. This movie does a fine job with a subset of Johnston's life, leaving out his service in the Civil War, and his later life as a town marshal and finally, his death in an old veterans home in Los Angeles. I got the notion that Fischer's book bordered on plagiarism after reading Ruxton, and after reading Crow Killer it seems all Fischer did was change Johnson's name to Jeremiah and slap on a cover with his name on it. The movie also leaves out that Johnson spies, among the pile of bones that was his wife outside the cabin, a round object about the size of an orange - the skull of his unborn baby. He collects the bones of wife and baby and puts them in an iron pot and inters them behind carefully mortised rocks near the cabin; a shrine, his "kittle 'o bones" those closest to him called it (never in his presence) he visits over the years. Will Geer's character, near as I kin figger, is based on a friend of Johnson's named "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp, a man known to say, when presented with grizzly claws his mountain man friends collected for him to make necklaces of, "Great Jehosophat! Pocahontas and John Smith!" The Crazy Woman, one of the most sympathetic characters I have ever seen in a movie, was in real life the wife of John Morgan, a foolish homesteader on the Oregon Trail who quarreled with the wagon master and took off on his own only to be tomahawked and scalped alive by Crows, his daughter raped and scalped alive, and his two young sons killed. Mrs Morgan, having killed several of the Indians with an axe yet driven insane by the loss, lived on the Musselshell and was cared for by Johnson and his fellow mountain men for years. The movie leaves out the little detail that she and Johnson beheaded the Crow corpses and set them on stakes at each corner of the graveyard where she buried her children, the weathered skulls a powerful medicine for the Crows ever after. It was the Crow's deference to this insane white woman living in their midst that finally convinced Johnson to call off his vendetta against them, after having killed nearly 400 Crow warriors. Liver-Eating Johnson's grave (and here I borrow heavily from "Crow Killer") is in a cemetary off of Sepulveda Boulevard (interesting, that. One of Johnson's comrades was a huge black-bearded Hispanic named "Big Anton Sepulveda") in a section called San Juan Hill, row D, 2nd stone from the road reads "Jno. Johnston, Co. H, 2nd Colo. Cav.". Get the movie and enjoy it; it's a true story. Only took me 30 years to find that out.

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Robert Redford has one of his best-ever roles as a 19th century mountain man in a wilderness of harsh elements and hostile Indians. Directed by The Firm's Sydney Pollack. Year: 1972 Director: Sydney Pollack Starring: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch DVD Features:FeaturetteProduction Notes

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Broken Trail (Two-disc) (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Broken Trail", a dream project for producer/star Robert Duvall, and AMC's first original film, is the spiritual heir to Kevin Costner's 2003 "Open Range" (also starring Duvall), and one of the most moving, involving Westerns of recent years.

With a charismatic, extremely effective performance by Thomas Haden Church, as Duvall's long-estranged nephew, the film is one of only a handful of Westerns that combine epic sweep, superb characterization, and an understanding of the 'Real West', without shortchanging decency, or respect of an individual's worth. The era was hard, justice could be swift and brutal, and Duvall, as aging but upright Prentice Ritter, lives by his own rules; to protect the helpless in his care, to respect others, and to be unafraid to resort to violence, if necessary. Tom Harte (Church), despite some family history problems with his uncle, lives by the same code, and the two men, driving a herd of horses from Oregon to Wyoming to raise cash for a ranch, become the 'saviors' of five young Chinese women, sold into prostitution, who inadvertently fall into their hands.
These are good men, in a jaded world, and their journey picks up other 'strays', as well as the women; young Virginian fiddler Heck Gilpin (an engaging Scott Cooper), is rescued by Tom in a saloon; aging Chinese laborer Lung Hay (Donald Fong), and careworn prostitute Nola John (the wonderful Greta Scacchi) join the group after Tom saves the Chinese women from rapists, in a boarding house/bordello. While neither Ritter and Harte were overjoyed at the strange direction the drive was taking, they would not allow harm to fall on 'innocents', and the group bonds into a warm 'family', with Nola and Ritter finding a mature attraction between each other, and Tom and Sun Foy/#3 (Gwendoline Yeo, who speaks only Mandarin, in the film), gently falling in love.
Danger is never far behind them, however, as brutal ex-con 'Big Ears' (Chris Mulkey), with a score to settle with Nola, and a 'contract' to return the Chinese women to whorehouse owner Kate 'Big Rump' Becker (Rusty Schwimmer), trails them, leading a gang of killers...
While the film is long (240 minutes), director Walter Hill, an old hand at Westerns (his "The Long Riders" is one of my favorites), keeps the story constantly engrossing, and Duvall and Church have a warmth and authenticity as the characters that will stay with you, long after the movie ends.
Shot in the Canadian Rockies, "Broken Trail" combines grandeur and intimacy seamlessly, has moments of great humor to lighten the drama, explosive action, and a bittersweet sense of nostalgia...
It is, simply, superb!


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Set in 1897, a man and his nephew are trying to deliver a herd of horses when they become the reluctant guardians of five abandoned Chinese girls.Genre: TelevisionRating: NRRelease Date: 30-JAN-2007Media Type: DVD

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Hondo (Full Screen) (1953) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have certainly seen much worse Western movies all ready out on DVD. I wish this great one was available on DVD (When I wrote this it wasn't). I caught it on TV this weekend during a John Wayne marathon of movies. The acting, sets, directing, scenery, and music all stand out on this one. Many critics think "The Searchers" is great but although I think it is a wonderfully shot movie I don't think the interaction is as believable as "Hondo". The cast here does a wonderful job of making me believe what is happening and that I'm with them in that time period. John Furrow must have worked hard directing to get such results.
The attitude towards Indians is much more appropriate as well. The camera work is excellent. Especially good with wide scenic shots and close-ups of the actors. The directing as I said before is excellent, and the scope of acting in this movie is some of the best I have seen in a John Wayne movie or any Western for that matter. Geraldine Page is great as the Duke's love interest. She does a magnificent job portraying a pioneer woman. Ward Bond, Michael Pate, James Arness, and the rest the cast do a fine job supporting. I hope you get the opportunity to see it. I'm sure you will agree it is a top notch Western and it should be on DVD.
As an addendum I want to thank the studio for finally releasing a wonderful quality DVD with several extras. This is a personal favorite and I want to thank those of you nice enough to vote for my review. It is people like you showing an interest in these classics that prompts the studios to do a proper job of restoring the movies and releasing them on DVD.

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Based on the Louis L'Amour story "The Gift of Cochise," this sparkling western has Wayne as a half-Indian Cavalry scout who, with his feral dog companion, finds a young woman and her son living on a isolated ranch in unfriendly Apache country. A poetic and exciting script, outstanding performances, and breathtaking scenery make this an indisputable classic. Page's debut.

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Open Range (2003) Review

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(More customer reviews)For those viewers who fondly remember, and miss, Robert Duvall's role as Augustus McCrae in the 1989 TV miniseries LONESOME DOVE, take heart. Duvall is back in the saddle again as "Boss" Spearman in OPEN RANGE. It's been way too long.
The lead role in this western actually belongs to Kevin Costner, who plays Spearman's trail partner and employee, Charlie Waite. Boss is a cattleman that practices free-range grazing, i.e. driving his herd from place to place, only staying long enough for the animals to deplete the available food supply. But it's 1882, ranchers are beginning to fence in the West, and freegrazers are an endangered species. So, its no surprise when Charlie and Boss are ordered to take their beeves and get out of Dodge, so to speak, by big time rancher Baxter (Michael Gambon), who also owns the local town and its sheriff. Waite and Spearman are soon backed into a corner when the latter's two other hired hands, Mose (Abraham Benrubi) and Button (Diego Luna), run seriously afoul of Baxter's thugs.
It would be hard to choose between the better performance - Costner or Duvall - both playing characters so strong, self-reliant and silent that neither knows the other's full name. And they've been riding the West together for ten years! Nor does Boss know Charlie's violent history, which included being a Civil War raider, and then a hired gun much like the ones now working for Baxter. When Charlie falls in love with Sue (Annette Bening), the spinster sister of the local sawbones, his guilt over his rough-edged past is a self-imposed handicap that Sue, who sees Waite's inner goodness, must overcome.
Moviegoers accustomed to a steady diet of mindless, FX-laden action thrillers may find the first three-quarters of OPEN RANGE slow going. It's called "character and plot development", an intelligent change of pace. And when the final shoot-out comes, it's perhaps the best ever filmed. While most such western confrontations seem like a choreographed ballet, this one shows them for what they were: relatively short, extremely violent, chaotic, and lacking in fancy gunplay and sharpshooting finesse.
Big Screen westerns are such a rarity nowadays that it's hard to compare this one with any other in recent memory. Though perhaps not as memorable as DANCES WITH WOLVES, this Old West morality play is certainly the best since UNFORGIVEN. Admittedly, we've seen similar plots before: the small homesteader/Big Ranching feud in the classic SHANE, and Big Mining vs. the small prospector in PALE RIDER, Clint Eastwood's transparent re-scripting of the former. However, the acting, cinematography and costuming of OPEN RANGE are excellent. Duvall surely deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and the production as a whole may merit a Best Picture nod. My only complaint lies with the editing, which left in one too many leave-takings between Charlie and Sue, the last being completely superfluous. That said, however, this is a five-star tribute to loyalty, rugged individualism, integrity, and simply doing what's right. I think, sometimes, that Hollywood has forgotten what those qualities are all about.

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Packed with epic action, OPEN RANGE is a powerfully gripping story that's never been told until now, and stars Academy Award(R) winners Robert Duvall (1983 Best Actor, TENDER MERCIES) and Kevin Costner (1991 Best Director, DANCES WITH WOLVES), and Academy Award(R) nominee Annette Bening (1999 Best Actress, AMERICAN BEAUTY). A group of free grazers, four men trying to escape their past, are driving cattle and living off the land on the open range -- a place where nature makes the only laws. When a ruthless, evil rancher tries to run them out of town, the men's peaceful existence takes a tumultuous turn and ends in the grittiest, most explosive gunfight on film as two men battle a town for honor, justice, and a way of life that's quickly disappearing.

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