Open Range
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: August 15, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's a gorgeously atmospheric, perfectly cast, beautifully crafted oater of the old school, made with heaps of integrity, no gimmicks and few concessions to the box office. Its only real flaw is that it strains a bit too hard to be a "classic" western. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
There's a lot in this movie, simple, big, small and exciting. It's the year's first serious contender for big prizes. What's not to like about this picture? Read full review
90
Film ThreatKevin Carr
Open Range gets better the deeper you get into the story. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
In this handsomely traditional movie, Kevin Costner has tried to fix the Western myth for all time in the stern contours of Duvall’s face and the guttural beauty of his voice. [1 September 2003, p. 130]
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
An imperfect but deeply involving and beautifully made Western. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's a fine, old-fashioned 2 1/4 hours at the Bijou. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A fine, heartfelt film, sometimes harrowing in its violence but blessedly free of pretension or bombast, even though it aspires to -- and achieves -- the stature of a classic Western.
80
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Here is a Western without irony or innovation, without any of the overt efforts toward “revisionism” we’ve come to expect even from Eastwood -- a movie that waxes elegiac about the end of the West, but remains sure that cowboys and cattle and ramshackle frontier towns will live on in perpetuity at the cinema. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Costner sets course for one of the most stirringly choreographed shootouts in movie history. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An intensely scenic, refreshingly humanistic oater that dares to be sincere and open-hearted. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Corliss
It's a real and rare pleasure to see Costner and Duvall together -- these masters of intense passivity, who know how to be watched when they're listening. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Say what you like, think what you will, scoff if you have to (and you will definitely have to), but in the final analysis Kevin Knows Westerns. Read full review
80
EmpireAlan Morrison
A return to the Western in its pure, cinematic form. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Nobody smells of sagebrush, campfire coffee, tobacco (smoked or chewed) and saddle soap like Duvall. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is a great two-hour motion picture. Unfortunately, it runs 20 minutes longer than that. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
A patient, suspenseful exercise in genre craftsmanship Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Open Range could easily have lost 20 minutes in the editing room, but its very casual pacing and beautiful vistas - gorgeously photographed in British Columbia by James Munro - are a soothing alternative in a season of movies seemingly aimed at sufferers of attention deficit disorder. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A flawed but highly entertaining B Western blown up to John Ford scale. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
There's nothing corny, however, about the climactic shoot-out, which Costner has staged superbly as an extended logistical mini-war that surges and rifle-cracks with bloody abandon through what feels like every building in town. Call it dances with guns. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Costner is always at his best when he’s a little ornery, and Duvall is the same way. His grizzled performance is so thoroughly in character that he even chews as if it were 1882. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMark Holcomb
The scenario recalls everything from "High Noon" to "Unforgiven," but Costner is less interested in grappling with the grim ambiguities underlying those films than in codifying them. There's still much to like, including the warm, thoughtful performances and cinematographer James Muro's fearless use of natural light. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Mostly it's just a good yarn, with attractive picture-postcard vistas and an agreeable strain of light humor. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
In spite of its portentousness, the film does engage one. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
When the picture's good, it's really something; when it's bad, you grit your teeth and pray it will end. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Though visually lovely and ambitious, never soars to the heights achieved by "Unforgiven." Costner’s film lacks the moral complexity that might earn it a solid berth in the canon of the American Western. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
Compared with other films Costner has directed, Range isn't a folly like "The Postman," nor is it quite as over-elaborated as "Dances With Wolves." Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The screenplay of Open Range, credited to one Craig Storper, is an awesome compendium of cowboy-movie cliches. It borders on parody, and often crosses the border, rustling up a drove of oater aphorisms. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
A better, and more relevant movie, might have left us at the point of troubled introspection, but Costner is compulsive about tying up loose ends and upbeat messages. If the climax of Open Range is disappointing, the ending is almost intolerable. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A blend of the classical and the trite, the beautiful and tawdry, the genuinely moving and the cornball. Oddly, producer-director-star Costner often can't seem to tell the difference. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Storper is pretty good at playing with and against certain western cliches in his treatment of the good guys (including Annette Bening's character), but resorts to pure cliche when it comes to the villians (e.g., Gambon and James Russo). Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
While Costner the actor clearly imagines himself the Gary Cooper of the 21st century, he's got a crude sentimental streak that Costner the director fails to curtail. Read full review
60
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Many sequences, many moments, are turned skillfully, and the look of the film is much of the time breathtaking. Yet, for its entire two hours and fifteen minutes, we merely watch it. It is there. We are here, regrettably objective. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Open Range veers wildly. It's a movie of beauty and sensitivity, and tedium and absurdity. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
There's a fine little western lurking inside Open Range: Too bad it gets drowned out by director Kevin Costner's pretentiousness. Almost everything in the movie feels inflated, overblown, drawn out. Read full review
50
PremiereAddison MacDonald
A moderate success, if a bit clunky. Somewhere beneath the syrupy melodrama and the scenes that should have expired long ago, there is an intelligent, thoughtful western in waiting. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
In all, the film is a striking, if flawed, achievement by a talented actor who may become an important director if he sticks to the genre that suits him best. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Open Range copies the rain and flood of the Clint Eastwood classic but can't match it for dark-night-of-the-soul brilliance. Read full review
40
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Mr. Costner's relentless, root-canal humorlessness turns what might have been an enjoyable B-picture throwback into a ponderous drag. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Where "Silverado" swaggered, Open Range sulks; it's no fun at all. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Without Duvall, this movie would be as wet as Waterworld. Read full review
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