Open Range (2003)

Open Range arrives in 2003 with the confidence of a man who has made this trip before. Kevin Costner directs himself and Robert Duvall as free-grazing cattlemen whose herd wanders into the Montana territory of Denton Baxter, a land baron who owns the town, the saloon, and the local marshal. The resulting range war is a familiar arrangement, executed with wide, patient shots and a final gunfight that critics have spent two decades praising. It is a sturdy piece of work. The film is based on Lauran Paine's novel, and it carries the dust of that source material without apology.

On the matter of social consciousness, the film is a period piece in more than setting. The cast is almost entirely white, with Diego Luna appearing in a supporting role whose heritage is never acknowledged and never asked to be. Annette Bening's Sue is granted a measure of independence and a teasing line about being the brains of the outfit, though the narrative positions her as the reward waiting at the end of a man's violent errand. The villain is a wealthy rancher who controls a town, which lends a faint little-men-against-the-powerful flavor, but that is a Western convention stretching back a century, not an economic argument.

The remaining categories register as silence. There is no LGBTQ presence, no racial commentary, no environmental concern beyond the weather, no body politics, no neurodivergence. Charley's wartime flashbacks read as guilt and trauma, full stop. The film shows its themes and preaches none of them, which leaves it with almost nothing to lecture us about. We are left with a well-made Western that has no interest in the present tense, and there is a strange relief in that.