Open Range

A 2003 Western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. The film is partially a Deconstruction of many old western films where a lone hero rides into town and stands up for the downtrodden townsfolk against the mustache-twirling villain.

In Open Range, the hero isn't lone... he has his boss, and two friends. He's also not a gallant, dashing hero with an iron jaw and an ironclad sense of justice... he's a Civil War veteran with PTSD who struggles constantly against the psychosis and guilt inflicted by what he's done in the past, trying desperately to find what's right in the situation. His love interest is not the naive young maiden who's desired by all in town, but a woman of his own middling years who's rather weathered and cynical in her own right.

But overall, the film is more interested in using these to add more realism and a sense of being an actual time in history to a classic cowboy story. For all its Darker and Edgier take on the cowboy hero, it is ultimately an idealistic tale of good men doing something and not allowing evil to triumph.

Was part of a new era of Costner's self-made and self-starring films that actually met with both critical and viewer acclaim, if not being a runaway hit. It maintains a 7.9/10 on IMDb, and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a 79% "fresh" rating from critics and 80% from audiences.

Tropes used in Open Range include:

• Awesomeness By Analysis: A key factor in how two men are able to defeat Baxter's entire gang in the final showdown is Charley having sufficient combat experience to predict every significant move Baxter will make, from their initial choice of approach route and tactics (straight down Main Street, overconfidently in the open) to the likeliest spots they'd attempt to set up overwatch from to the hotspots the fight was most likely to move towards once the battle began (and thus the best places to cache spare weapons). In a nod to reality the fight was occurring on terrain he was thoroughly familiar with, at a time and place he chose, against largely untrained men using simple straightforward tactics and reactions, which is what made this possible.
• Bottomless Magazines - Played straight in the final show down with the Cattle Ranchers men. Charley fires 9 shots from what is a 6 shot revolver. This is likely do to rule of cool as Charley is shown fanning his pistol to allow him to fire faster. However Charley then switches to using a Winchester Repeating Rifle presumably because he needs to reload his revolver.
  • IIRC, there was a deleted scene of Charley dropping his first revolver and drawing a second.
  • Later in the showdown scene Charley is shown to be reloading his pistol.
  • After Boss and Charley bushwhack the corrupt town marshal and his deputies, the two spend time across the town planting additional weapons and supplies at where Charley figured the gunfights would go. When they empty one weapon they later pick up another.
• Card-Carrying Villain - Butler.

"You the one that shot our friend?"
"That's right. I shot the boy, too. And I enjoyed it."
BLAM

• Cattle Baron - Baxter.
• Combat Pragmatist - Charley opens the fight by shooting Butler in the forehead while he's still talking, precisely because Butler is Baxter's most experienced and fastest gunman and he wants him out of the way before he has a chance to shoot back. As well as the fact that he really didn't like him.
• Cowboy: Working type cowboys are the main characters as they free graze a cattle herd.
• The Dragon - Butler
• Embarrassing Middle Name - Boss's first name is Bluebonnet. You can't blame him for going by "Boss."
• Foreshadowing - An in-universe example, when Boss picks up on the subtext of a story someone told earlier.

"Most times a man will tell you his bad intentions ahead of time, if you listen."

• Gentle Giant: Mose.
• Gory Discretion Shot - The AMC broadcast creates one by making the gunshot softer and speeding up his fall backward so that you don't see the new hole in his head when Butler is shot.
• Guns Akimbo: Charley in the final show down towards the end of the scene is shown with a revolver in both hands.
• Instant Death Bullet: Averted with the boy. He survives when Butler shoots him. Then he comes back in the climax, still bandaged, fires off a shot, and is shot again, and survives.
  • During the final gunfight various characters including Boss and Baxter get shot but keep fighting. Baxter finally succumbs after what looks like taking twelve shots to the upper body, but is still breathing long enough for Boss to be tempted with the idea of putting one final bullet in Baxter's head to make sure.
  • Played straight with Butler who gets what's coming to him.
• Kick the Dog - The Marshall and his men kill the dog Tig, shoot the wounded Gentle Giant in head and then nearly beat a boy to death.
• The Lancer - Charley, to Boss.
• Morality Pet - In some ways, Button (and to some extent, his other friends as well) are this for Charley.
• No Party Given - Or, more accurately, no side given. Charley never says whether he fought for the Union or Confederacy in the Civil War, but the sort of behind-the-lines raiding done in civilian clothes and masks that is shown in his PTSD dream/flashback was much more likely to have been with something like Quantrill's raiders or Bloody Bill Anderson's than with conventional forces, and they were both Confederate guerrilla leaders.
• Pet the Dog - Charley saves a towns man's dog from drowning in the flooded street.
  • Various acts of charity that Boss and Charley commit during their stay in the town help win over the community to their side during the final gunfight.
• Rage Against the Heavens: A very mild example, in which Boss and Charley both tell God they're inclined to hold a grudge for what's happened to their friends.
• There Was a Door: Subverted in a deleted scene:

Baxter's Henchman tries the sheriff's door, and finds it locked.
Henchman- Door's locked, Mr. Baxter. You want me to break it down?
Baxter- stares at him No. You go down to the saloon, get the keys from Bill.

• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Tig and Mose.
• Truth in Television: Fanning is a revolver shooting technique in which one hand holds the trigger and the other hits the revolver hammer repeatedly. This turns the cylinder and hits the firing pin in that order, allowing for 'automatic fire' of a revolver. This technique only works with single action revolvers.