As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Sometimes you are surprised in thrift store movies, which all the punks now watch Netfllix and dump their DVD's for nothing and allows me to review something which surprised me in a long movie called Open Range.
The reason I indulged was Robert Duvall as Robert Duvall never makes a bad movie, and more to the point Robert Duvall makes great westerns.
The thing which made me wince is Kevin Costner. He just can not act, and is a creeper and blew what career he had in his documentaries. He is just too detailed.
Open Range is a movie about cattle grazing on the open range and cattle magnets creating fiefdoms. I will not ruin the storyline as this is a kind of girl movie for men. It was introspective as Duvall movies are and it tells a good meandering story line as it moseys along.
The cast is good, Michael Gambon plays the bad cattleman, and having watched him dominate all that British fodder, he literally gets absorbed in this movie by the Americans and Canadians. He is not as big on screen as he appears.
There are really nice surprises in Annette Benning appears, and yes I cringed as Warren Beatty's wife and how Hollywood she is, but she really fills the screen in this movie. It is too bad Hollywood ruined her career as if she been able to star with real men, she would have become the star lead in all movies. I am thinking how great she would have been replacing Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
Michael Jeter appears and he holds his own with Duvall and Costner. I know you have seen him in that Burt Reynolds comedy of long ago, and that Tom Hanks movie about prison inmates where he kept a pet mouse, but he really does a great job here.
I wanted to mention Kim Coates. You will remember him with Bruce Willis in the Last Boy Scout. He is the thug who keeps hitting Willis and Willis says he is going to kill him if he does it again, and he does.
That was Mr. Coates' first acting roll. He is from Saskatoon Saskatchewan, which is fitting as Open Range looks filmed in Alberta as most westerns are.
Coates has the most memorable moments in this film, as he always seems to steal scenes in movies, so you remember him after hours of the stars.
I found this gif, and it explains a great deal. You expect some great build up, but it is perfect in what happens.
The movie I will spoil in it has a happy ending. It is Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, not as polished, but it lasts over two hours and you are left feeling it is just about right.
It reminds me of Robert Duvall with Thomas Hayden Church in Broken Trail, both very good modern westerns, driven by Mr. Duvall in his sagebrush wisdom.
I am left feeling in these movies, how much I would have liked Robert Duvall to have made a hundred more of them. He was the modern John Wayne and produced the finest of cinema, without all the Hollywood bullshit.
The final shootout is a short version of Pekinpah in the Wild Bunch opening. It was very good in the disturbing volley and volume of close fire.
This is the short version. The long version takes admission fees.
agtG
