![]() At the onset of the series, the Abbotts are coping with the disappearance of daughter-in-law Rebecca." ![]() The official synopsis teases that it is "a thrilling fable with hints of wry humor and supernatural mystery", adding " Outer Range examines how we grapple with the unknown. Outer Range follows Royal Abbott, where he and his family are dealing with the disappearance of their daughter-in-law Rebecca, while an untimely death in the community shakes everyone. Don't miss our what's new on Prime Video guide. Craig Storper's spare script is so good that the odd bad line sticks out like a sore trigger-finger, and James Muro makes a fine job of his first assignment as director of photography.Īs an old-timer running the local forge and livery stable, the late Michael Jeter makes a memorable final screen appearance.The series lands on Prime Video on Friday, April 15 in the US and UK. This is a truly outstanding film, with great performances, particularly from Duvall (his sixth big-screen western in 34 years). For less than a minute, the action goes into slow-motion, a climactic montage accompanied by a quasi-Wagnerian theme. A superb prolonged shoot-out starts at the town's corral and is followed by an extended coda of great warmth and charm. It is magnificently staged with a slow, humorous build-up as Charley and Boss prepare to face death. The film's inevitable showdown comes in the muddy streets of the raw, unfinished Harmonville, for merly Fort Harmon but deserted by the cavalry now the Indian wars are over in this part of the country. As with most women in the traditional western, Sue is the voice of reason, but she's untypical in her recognition that there are times when compromise doesn't work and men must resort to violence. In Charley, she finds a kindred troubled spirit and a sweet, chaste romance develops. Sue draws out Boss to the extent of making him reveal that he's a longtime widower whose wife and child died of typhus. She looks like the face on a Victorian cameo and serves them tea in china cups the handles of which - an interesting metaphor here - are too small for the cowboys to hold. They are stern, but not humourless fierce but controlled hard, yet capable of risking themselves to save a threatened dog.Ĭharley and Boss dislike towns and the settled life, but they meet and are attracted by the acceptable face of civilisation, Sue (Annette Bening), the fortysomething sister of the town's doctor. There is, however, nothing pious about these men. This they do out of respect for their friends and as a moral duty. They are prepared to ride on in peace, but Baxter, all brutality and bluster, provokes them into making a stand. These horsemen are the hired guns of the Irish immigrant cattle baron, Baxter (Michael Gambon), who runs the local town through his control of the sheriff, and intends to make an example of Boss and Charley. In the foreground of the shot are a couple of strands of barbed wire, the ugly invention of little more than a decade before that stands for exclusion, possession, pain. There is a magnificent image in the movie when Charley and Boss ride out to confront four menacing horsemen who stand atop a hill, white flour-bags masking their faces as if they were the Ku Klux Klan. Farmers stake out smallholdings, and big ranchers with corporate backing from the east are taking over the land and making war on the free grazers. But the days of this way of life are numbered. They're like a family and they want to live a simple, nomadic existence, driving their cattle on the range. The younger men are the Mexican-American known as Button (Diego Luna), a rather good-looking 16-year-old who's like an adopted son, and the cheerful, portly Mose (Abraham Benrubi), who has gained self-respect through being trusted by Charley and Boss. The two older men are Charley Waite (Kevin Costner), a reformed gunfighter who became a hardened killer during the Civil War, and Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), the head of the outfit with whom Charlie has been riding for 10 years. Only later do we learn - inevitably from a grave-marker - that the year is 1882. It is a beautiful start to a carefully paced and richly satisfying movie. In the distance, storm clouds gather, a warning of danger ahead and a token of the hard lives these men have chosen to live in this picturesque, unforgiving country. Two middle-aged horsemen, moving with authority, survey their herd a younger man is down among the cattle a cheerful fat man drives the accompanying wagon.Ī rich, melodic theme by Michael Kamen, both epic and elegiac, plays on the soundtrack. Here, a long line of cattle is strung out across the rolling prairie with mountains towering above. Open Range, in fact, begins by evoking the start of Ford's first postwar western, My Darling Clementine, where the Earp brothers drive their cows towards Tombstone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |