1.5 out of 5

Everything about Kevin Costner’s “Open Range” is calculated antithesis to his much-maligned 1997 feature “The Postman”, and that is where its failure lies: Costner seems more concerned here with atonement than doing anything new & exciting with the Western genre.

Coming off Postman & “Waterworld” probably humbled Kevin enough to dial the front-and-centre “Costner Factor” back for this, his third official directorial effort. Along with top billing, Costner has given up the density of background extras, dolly shots, and side-stories that distinguishes both Postman and his first feature “Dances With Wolves”. It’s clear this is a deliberate sanitization on Costner’s part: Open Range’s first-act visual metaphor of him digging a stuck wagon out of mud is apt.

But taken as its own entertainment as opposed to a feature-length critical response, Open Range lacks the Costner Factor’s chutzpah. It’s a “two people in a room” movie, but on a field. Nothing in screenwriters Lauran Paine’s & Craig Storper’s monologues come to any revelatory philosophical conclusions: it’s all dialogue you’ve probably heard already on Costner’s current revivification “Yellowstone”. Robert Duvall’s & Costner’s acting is fine, but Annette Bening seems to have taken her direction of “speaking with the eyes” (like DWW’s Mary McDonnell and Postman’s Olivia Williams) too literally, looking like a deer-in-the-headlights the whole time.

There was some nice texture. I liked the design of the town and its quick-and-dirty construction. I liked how the two men were pretty much able to take over the whole thing with just their combined gunslinger experience. Having animals in distress (especially the Good Bois here) is a dirty filmmaking trick, but Costner the director goes-for-broke, which I appreciate, because if you’re going to go there, go all the way. And the climactic showdown – for all its over-editing – is gleefully violent, with touches of Leone, Peckinpah, and even John Woo. But these details stand out independently of the overlong film, rather than elements of its whole. DWW justified its length with solemnity, and Postman with narrative scope. Open Range has neither.

Kevin should be commended for his attempts at diffidence here but, for those of us who care, time will tell whether his upcoming four-part theatrical serial “Horizon” is a return-to-form of the Costner Factor.