Mike Sinkovich Tells You How It Is: Film

I just finished watching Open Range which I got for the celebration of Jesus's birth, which ironically involves a lot of death. Maybe it should be more of an easter gift.

Openrange Costner has had a bad rap as far as his acting/directing is concerned, recently. I was among the few who liked Waterworld, I know that's like saying you watch children from afar and manipulate your genitals, but I thought it was okay. And besides, just watching Hopper enjoy being the mental bad-guy was a film in itself.

So I sat down to watch this with a 50-50 mindset. When I read the back of the box, among the usual "buy this film you'll love it" crap, one line was enough to get my attention.....

"..peaceful existence takes a violent turn and ends in the grittiest, most explosive gunfight on film..."

....okay let's just make sure everyone has got that. Most explosive gunfight on film. Hard-fucking-core man, you've got my attention now. But what is the film like, I hear you cry.

It starts off in the usual Costner way, moody guy who obviously has a bad-ass past that he is trying to forget about, but shouldn't really because chicks blatantly love guys who go around ruining peoples shit then feeling bad about it. Duvall hands in a pretty good performance as his best mate and boss (who cleverly calls himself "Boss" to avoid any confusion), and the film begins to take some kind of shape.

Annoying side characters soon get fucked-up as the bad/good line is drawn very clearly so you know who's who once the bullets start flying. Which helps because side-characters only piss and whine anyway and it's better that they just serve as a reason to start shooting peoples heads off.
Token love interests are introduced and more dialogue is used to reveal more of Costners history, not that we care, but it's nice to pretend like you watched the film for the story.

Just as you start thinking "this gunfight better be good Costner...", blam, some guy gets his mellon fucked with Coster's hardcore pistol skills and then all hell breaks loose. People get seriously fucked up, Duvall even helps out which was surprising as you would think he would be a "get hit in the stomach and live just long enough for Costner to finish up, before bistowing some wisdom then dying" part, but he lays down some shotgun ass-kickery that makes everyone feel better about themselves.

At points where you think the action has died down, and everyone is stood at either end of a street waiting in a stand-off, Costner just rocks up and starts ruining everyones shit, pumping bullets into guys like it was spunk in a gay jazz flick. He even fans the hammer of his pistol, walking towards some dude who was fucked from catching the first round and is totally screwed by the time Costner is finished. Gunfights fucking rule.