Open Range
The Kevin Costner jinx is over. Open Range is quite entertaining. Hollywood is quite reactionary--a few cowboy movies flop and the judgment is that westerns just don't work anymore--but actors get a long leash. Costner is one beneficiary, and Freddie Prinze Jr. received more than three strikes.
The dialogue of Open Range is the traditional terse, ungrammatical, honest talk of men educated on the Western plains (or Western movies):
"Men are going to get killed her today, Sue, and I'm going to kill them."
"That Cuban cigar got me all riled up!"
"Cows are one thing, but a man telling another man where he can go? That's just wrong. It's stuck in my craw all day."
"A man gets hit in the head with a gun, it can make him crazy all the rest of his days."
I love that stuff, and Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner deliver it just right. It's probably not how people spoke back then, but it feels like our modern collective vision or hopes of what the wild West was like, just like The Untouchables felt like a dream about the days of bootlegging liquor and Al Capone.
Also, the gunshots in the movie are loud. Very very loud. They snap with percussive impact. The gunfights are realistic, messy. Gunfighters stand close to each other firing away with revolvers and shotguns, and usually they miss. The DVD has pre-earned a spot in my collection.
The dialogue of Open Range is the traditional terse, ungrammatical, honest talk of men educated on the Western plains (or Western movies):
"Men are going to get killed her today, Sue, and I'm going to kill them."
"That Cuban cigar got me all riled up!"
"Cows are one thing, but a man telling another man where he can go? That's just wrong. It's stuck in my craw all day."
"A man gets hit in the head with a gun, it can make him crazy all the rest of his days."
I love that stuff, and Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner deliver it just right. It's probably not how people spoke back then, but it feels like our modern collective vision or hopes of what the wild West was like, just like The Untouchables felt like a dream about the days of bootlegging liquor and Al Capone.
Also, the gunshots in the movie are loud. Very very loud. They snap with percussive impact. The gunfights are realistic, messy. Gunfighters stand close to each other firing away with revolvers and shotguns, and usually they miss. The DVD has pre-earned a spot in my collection.