Movie:
The western United States, 1882: Charley Waite (Kevin Costner) and Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) are among the last of the so-called freegrazers, cattle drovers who drive their cattle across the United States over open rangeland. They are accompanied by the young Mexican Button (Diego Luna) and the strong but good-natured Mose (Abraham Benrubi). Ranchers don't like to see the Freegrazers near their own grazing land and see them as a threat to their own profits. And so when Boss and Charley's cattle graze his frontier land, even the heavily wealthy rancher Baxter (Michael Gambon), who has the small town of Harmonville firmly in his tyrannical grip, doesn't react kindly. The victim of the first assault is Moses, who ends up badly injured in Harmonville's jail after a rough encounter with Baxter's men.
Charley and Boss manage to break Moses out of jail and have him tended to by local doctor Doc Barlow (Dean McDermott) and the resolute as well as warm-hearted Sue Barlow (Anette Bening). But even before Moses' wounds can heal, there is another confrontation with Baxter and his men. And this encounter claims victims that Boss and Charley must avenge at any cost. Reason now has no place in the lives of the Freegrazers, now it's all about revenge. But of course, Baxter and his men can't be taken out that easily without affecting the innocent people of Harmonville. But justice must be served, no matter the cost.
Following "Silverado", "Dancing with Wolves" and "Wyatt Earp", Kevin Costner turns to the Western genre once again with "Open Range". And as with his Oscar-winning success "Dancing with Wolves", Costner not only appears as an actor in his new Western, but also holds the reins firmly behind the camera. That Costner's whole love belongs to this genre, also the viewer notices quickly, when he is already spoiled in the first minutes with beautiful landscape shots and first-class "Marlborough-Country"-Romanticism. The fact that the dialogues of the hearty cowboys are too cliché-laden to be really convincing for even a moment is hardly noticed at first due to the beauty of these images. Rather, as a viewer you have the feeling that "Open Range" moves a little off the beaten genre path. But that is unfortunately not the case.
In the second half, what was until then a first-class western degenerates into an old-fashioned revenge story that is too reminiscent of the Eastwood classic "Ruthless" and the mother of all westerns, the classic "12 noon". While the film is still above average here, it shows little of the originality that was still evident in the first half. What is easy to forget here is how much effort and love went into the whole project. After all, "Open Range" is not a Hollywood big-budget production, but a film made independently by a studio with relatively little money (25 million dollars) and under not exactly easy conditions.
Both supporting actor Michael Jeter, as well as film composer Michael Kamen died a few months after filming. Even though both of them deliver truly top-notch work in "Open Range", it's a shame that their legacy didn't turn out to be even more compelling. In the USA, the film was able to bring in almost 60 million dollars, but in Germany, the Western will probably have a much harder time. But if you like old-fashioned westerns in the best genre tradition and don't mind corny dialogues, you'll be spoiled with a really well-directed and excellently acted film. And even if "Open Range" doesn't really offer anything new, it's honestly quite nice to see a really old-fashioned movie again. Therefore, for Kevin Costner's Western: thoroughly worth seeing!!
Picture:
The great strength of the film is without question the great landscape shots, which also shine in full glory on the DVD. Colours are rich, contours are clear and apart from a few minor flaws, there's no cause for complaint in terms of sharpness either. Very good!
Sound:
The DVD's good sound quality is evident during the gunfights and during the big storm sequence. Otherwise, dialogue and music predominate, also sounding very spacious and dynamic from the speakers. Again, a very good!
Extras:
"Open Range" has been released both as a single DVD, on which only a short featurette can be found, and as a terrific Deluxe Edition double DVD. This offers on the first DVD a very good and interesting audio commentary by Kevin Costner, to which optional German subtitles can be switched on.
Disc 2 begins with a short intro by Kevin Costner (0:48), recorded especially for the German DVD. It continues with the Making of "Beyond the Open Range" (65:50), which is divided into eight chapters and is one of the best making-of documentaries of recent times. Seeing how much heart and soul Costner put into getting this film off the ground in this detailed and very honest documentary, it's easy to tend to forgive him for certain weaknesses in the staging and the film's lack of originality. It's a wonderful, completely commercial-free documentary and the best reason to get this DVD.
Continues with a total of 12 deleted scenes, which can be viewed either with Kevin Costner's introduction (28:17) or without (21:55). These scenes were removed from the finished film for a reason, but in some cases give a little more depth to the individual characters. For this reason alone, the deleted scenes are well worth watching!
The next item in the extras offers three featurettes. "Americas Open Range" (12:44) gives a brief overview of the historical background of the film. Not really outstanding, but still quite interesting. "The Storyboards" (6:36) shows the storyboard artist at work and then compares it to the finished film. This short documentary is much more interesting than the usual storyboard presentation, so it's really worth watching. The final featurette is exclusive to the German DVD and features 9:17 minutes of images from the German premiere and a short speech by Kevin Costner.
A "Broken Wagon" video clip (4:29) with lots of behind-the-scenes footage and various trailers round out the exemplary bonus program on this double DVD.
Conclusion:
Although the film has some noticeable weaknesses, the DVD is absolutely must own. A good audio commentary and an exemplary making-of should definitely not be missed by fans. Without question, the following applies here: absolutely recommendable!!!!
Original title: Open Range
Director: Kevin Costner
Number of discs: 2
Languages: German (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS ES Discrete 6.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS ES Discrete 6.1)
Subtitles: German, English
Image Format: 16:9 (2.35:1)
Extras: Audio commentary, making of, deleted scenes (optional with commentary), 3 featurettes, trailer, TV spots, cast and crew information
FSK: age 12+
length: approx. 133 min.
Regional code: 2
Ein Artikel von Frankfurt-Tipp
