Open Range (2003)

For what it's worth, this is probably the best looking western I can recall seeing. It's just too bad that the rest of the film doesn't match up to the cinematography. That isn't to say the film is bad, but it isn't particularly good either. In trying to paint his wild west, Kevin Costner has tried to make a John Ford film. It's got the classic slow pacing, the great big scenery, and Costner himself trying to act like John Wayne with post traumatic stress disorder. The problem winds up lying somewhere at the bottom of a giant pile of clichés. Everything that's supposed to be in a western is present and accounted for, but there's nothing here you haven't already seen in a better film. Meanwhile, the acting is best described as “fair” and the editing was probably done with a rusty butter knife. Short of that, it's got an okay script that can be at times compelling, but sadly never involving. It's really a shame that such great visuals didn't wind up in a better film.

5 out of 10.