DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| ***** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Robert Duvall as BOSS SPEARMAN Kevin Costner as CHARLEY WAITE Annette Bening as SUE BARLOW Michael Gambon as DENTON BAXTER Michael Jeter as PERCY Diego Luna as BUTTON Abraham Benrubi as MOSE Rated R Studio: Touchstone Directed by: Kevin Costner Back to DVD Review Home |
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“Open Range” was one of those films in which Kevin Costner really set himself up for failure. After years of rumor that Costner was falling out of favor with the Hollywood system, I was ready for his comeuppance. Let’s face it. We all know Costner is a real horse’s patootie.
In some ways, seeing Costner in such a predicament felt good. After all, he was one of the creative forces behind the gargantuan $175 million budget for “Waterworld.” At least his last directing effort, 1997’s tepid “The Postman” had a smaller budget - a paltry $80 million. Coming from an independent film background, I admit it was nice to see Costner forced to work on a lean budget.
The only catch was that “Open Range” was a good movie. Heck, it was a great movie. It was one of the best films of the years and easily the best western that had hit the screen in decades. Maybe Kevin Costner is like a wounded animal that can be fat and lazy when unthreatened, but can be lethal when it’s cornered.
That’s not to say that Costner didn’t do some silly things throughout the production of “Open Range.” If you watch the behind-the-scenes videos on the DVD, you’ll that Costner still couldn’t break completely out of the studio mode. For example, he insisted on building the set for the town from the ground up rather than finding an existing Western town.
Here’s the story, in case you need a refresher... Boss (Robert Duvall) and Charlie (Kevin Costner) are free range cattle drivers moving through the open west. When they get a little too close to a small settlement, the evil rancher Baxter (Michael Gambon) sends out his roughnecks to cause some trouble. In typical western fashion, Baxter has the marshall in his pocket and owns most of the town. When Boss and Charlie head into town to seek justice, they find themselves fighting a war against Baxter in a scared town that desperately wants to be free.
There’s a lot of features on this double-disc special edition, put together without the flash of most other DVDs. However, this works in the context of the epic western. As with Costner’s directing, the DVD features take their sweet old time. This would be excruciating to watch if it was the “Spy Kids 3-D” DVD, but somehow moseying through the special features just seems to work in a western.
As I suspected when I saw the film in the theaters, there were numerous deleted scenes. I don’t know whose decisions it was to make the cuts (although after seeing the mind-numbingly long “The Postman,” I have severe doubts that Costner as a director could have initiated the cuts himself). However, I do know the cuts worked. If these scenes had been left in the released film, it would have dragged the movie down.
There’s a saying it writing: “Kill your babies.” No, this is not advocating child murder. It means that while a writer may fall in unconditional love with his or her own words, there comes a time when he or she has to pick up that red pen and cross them out. Not all writers have the guts to kill their babies. And the only reason directors kill their babies occasionally is because the studio big-wigs make them.
This is the joy of DVDs. It used to be when a director cut a scene, it was left to rot on the cutting room floor. However, since DVDs are capable of holding that much more material (and consumers have come to expect it), today’s directors know that the babies they killed will eventually be seen by an audience.
Each deleted scene includes an introduction by Costner, explaining why it was cut. Taken with his director’s commentary, there is a good share of insight into “Open Range.” The behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of “Open Range” gives a nice ground-level view of the film.
The advantage of having the egomaniacal director of the film also be the egomaniacal star is that the Costner-centric documentary is relevant. While it would have been nice to see more perspective, you have to realize that the behind-the-scenes is as much about Kevin Costner as it is about making the film. If you can swallow that aspect, you can swallow the documentary.
What’s really neat is it shows Costner with his back to the wall. In fact, it opens with a Costner interview on a day they were hoping international funding would come through because the money ran out. Other trials are less turbulent. After all, being forced to have production meetings in Costner’s multi-million dollar home is a big difference than being forced to have production meetings at the cockroach-infested single-bedroom apartment of the indie director. However, suffering is all relative.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DTS Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (2.35:1), enhance for 16x9 televisions. French language track; Spanish subtitles; English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.
