Open Range final shootout (part 1)



At Joe The Plumber's recommendation, and with his DVD, I finally saw the 2003 movie "Open Range", starring Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, and Annette Bening.

The movie starts out as a paean to the open range, and it's eminently dull at first, but it has a nice love story and it gets very lively at the end, with one of the best Wild West shootouts ever filmed. Here is Part I of the climactic scene. Plot summary:

Boss Spearman, Charley Waite, Mose Harrison and Button freegraze their cattle across the vast prairies of the West, sharing a friendship forged by a steadfast code of honor and living a life unencumbered by civilization. When their wayward herd forces them near the small town of Harmonville, the cowboys encounter a corrupt sheriff and kingpin rancher who govern the territory through fear, tyranny and violence. Boss and Charley find themselves inextricably drawn towards an inevitable showdown, as they are forced to defend the freedom and values of a lifestyle that is all too quickly vanishing. Amidst the turmoil, life suddenly takes an unexpected turn for the loner Charley when he meets the beautiful and warm spirited Sue Barlow, a woman who embraces both his heart and his soul.

So much of Wild West folklore derives from New Mexico's Lincoln County War. Although this movie is filmed in Alberta, you have the same ruthless Irish boss-type (Baxter here; Murphy in N.M.) And Costner fills in here as a sort of heroic Billy The Kid, with Robert Duvall as the kind of dad that Billy should have had.