Open Range

A western, and, ipso facto, I liked it (too broad a generalisation? It hasn't been proved wrong yet). I think that Costner probably directed this movie; in any case, the characters played by he and Duvall, and the ideas for which they stand, form its heart. All the familiar motifs are deployed, sometimes almost to the point of caricature (and where this happens, I think that it's inadvertent rather than deliberately 'revisionist' - we're meant to take seriously the feelings of the cowboy for a good dog), but they tend to be convincing - the scenery/setting cinematography is appropriately widescreen, the climactic gunfight is well done, the dialogue breathes (even if it occasionally edges into stock phrase territory), and the characters and their feelings are mostly believable, if largely archetypal (in fact, the acting is very good). Maybe it's a touch too long, but that's a forgivable failing in a film with pretensions such as this one.