Open Range. Directed by Kevin Costner. Starring Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Bening

Open Range. Directed by Kevin Costner. Starring Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Bening.

“The epic,” says Voltaire (or one of them), “is the farewell of one age to another.” Never been so true as of the American epic, the Western. Butch and Sundance “have to die and die bloody” on account of they haven’t understood the changes in a social order that doesn’t have place for solitaries any more; Monte Walsh has outlived his time; Tom Horne will hang for it; Will Penny didn’t see it coming. Surprise isn’t a feature either of the epic (song, poem, tale, film) or the Western, so we can’t get sore when the same inevitable elements turn up: the school marm, the town boss, the (doomed) sidekick, the taciturn loner goaded into action by injustice and on and on. Embroidery within the formula is the art of this genre (French for “Smile when you say that…”), “dancing in chains,” according to Nietzsche (variously spellt and that’s not Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher, but Bob Nietzsche, Sergeant Major back in the 2/504… big guy, irritable, made a lot of noise… ). Anyhow. We expect variations within the theme, but a coupla rules remain inviolate: we don’t never nohow, Pardner, grow (epic heroes are monodimensional and don’t learn nuffin’ nor change); we don’t never tell the audience what the movie means (the black and white morality of a primary oral society don’t need no explainin’, Missip’); and then, for Cripes sake, movie ends with the big gunfight.

Costner, who pulled in some heavy duty critical mooing over his Dances with Wolves, a hymn to the pastoral innocence of Indians (as we called them back then) and sensitive Army burnouts, has revisited that territory with a pair of crusty “free grazers,” Charlie (spellt for some reason “Charley,” played by Costner with one of those sillyass Mark Maguire beards) and “Boss” (Duvall doing his Lonesome Dove act for the what?… fifth time, crotchety reprobate with heart of gold and it might be time for him to get a new trope to turn), both of whom live under assumed names it turns out and under an assumption about their way of life that’s dying out as barbed wire, sodbusters with adorable moppets (of the Little House persuasion), and Irish bullies (Michael Gambon, fetching up a brogue fresh off the boat from County Sligo, in case you missed it, you dummy). When one of their crew, the affable giant Mose (Abraham Benrubi), gets the bejabers thwacked outten him in the town over the hill, Boss and Charlie(-ey) mosey down to fetch him. That leads them to a tangle with the local sheriff (boughten—and paiden fer—by Baxter, the baddie, natch) and that leads to the thwacking of another member of their crew, the decidedly unlovable Button (Diego Luna, playing unappealing Mexican adolescence and mostly in a coma anyhow), annnnnnnnnd the assassination of their equally unappealing dog, Thomas Stearns (played by Barbra Streisand in a long-awaited cameo, though it’s clear that the bell-voiced actrice has bulked up a little and that the years are beginning to show since the mutt was originally supposed to be one of those little border collie things but had to be re-written into a Bearnese to accommodate the hefty Streisand). And that, at length and I mean at length, leads to a big gundown in the streets of Boreado with predictable results.

While vengeance is simmering, though, we get the social theories of Boss and Charlie (-ey), the former of whom believes that “a man oughtn’t be able to tell another man where to go in this country” and the latter of whom appears to have done some dark stuff in a (Jeeezus wept) “special unit” during the recent unpleasantness (it’s not clear whether he was a Yank or a Reb, just that this “special unit”—like all “special units,” as we all know on account of Hollywood told us—got away from them and—ooopsy daisy—butchered a few odd civilians). Furthermore, as his libertarian impulses stir, Charlie(-ey) stumbles across Sue (Bening, former Dresden China doll fading here, playing a former Dresden China doll fading here and thus spared any of that messy “acting” stuff and I don’t think there was anybody named “Sue” out on the prairie… ever), sister of the local sawbones, who’s been “husbanding,” so to speak, her Dresden China beauty till just the right guy shows up (unshaven, scruffy, unkempt, brutal, wordless marginal lout like which one of us Cosmo girls isn’t looking for one of them?). Comes the shootout: Duvall unlimbers that New Army Remington while Costner wields a brace of Colts as the townsfolk slowly emerge from behind the safety (?) of clapboard buildings and glass panes to participate (Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven) in the purging of Prairietown from its (did I mention the guy’s Irish?) predator and we shoot the stuffing outten the guys who deserve it, apply nubile women to those who deserve that, erect civic stability under flatland democracy for those who deserve that, and hie off into a gorgeous western sunset the rest of ‘em. And right there would be a decent flick.

Sadly, between the shootout and the sunset drags an almost interminable coda, burgeoning and then explanation, if you can believe it, of Charlie(-ey)’s affection for Sue, the latter’s reciprocation of same, Boss’s prodding of the dimwitted Charley(-ie) to disencumber himself and offer the comely if frayed Sue something “other than your backside” (considering the chances it hasn’t seen soap lately, a prudent admonishment) and on and on… Glorious photography, though, careful costuming and set recreation. An equally careful study of recent and failed Westerns might’ve made this a better flick, though: Wyatt Earp, Tombstone forgot the rule that My Darling Clementine and Gunfight at OK Corral respected: the movie ends with the big gunfight.