Review of Open Range (2003) by Delton P — 16 Jan 2008

This is one of the DVDs I keep on my favorites shelf here in the office. I often felt treated well by the critics and somewhat unfairly by audiences. I consider myself a somewhat discriminating movie lover with a special place in my heart for westerns.

I do often watch westerns to escape to a more simple time and get the feeling of time long gone. Open Range places me into this time and has just enough realism and grit to keep me there for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

A plesant movie to revisit and appeals to my less patient action loving pards with what they consider to be one of the best or most realistic gunfights in the movies. I have Open Range right next to Wild Bunch on my shelf and a long-time fan of Peckinpah, I must admit when I go to the shelf, I pull Open Range down must more often then Peckinpah and I'll tell you why.

When I pull Wild Bunch down I feel like travelling back to the blood and guts of the 1970s, when I pull Open Range down I feel like I'm travelling West to the 1870s. This is a feat of realism through dialogue and everyday events expressed in this film that few others of this genre attempt or even care to recreate.