History Film / OpenRange

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Charley backstory: his father died when he was still a child, his mother was raped by her landlord, he killed the landlord, he committed crimes during the Civil War, he committed more crimes as a hired gun after the war.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Charley is called ''Waite'', but his real name is ''Charles Travis Postelwaite''. ''Button'' is a nickmane, and Boss and Charley do not know his real name.

* EmbarrassingLastName: Charley's last name is Postlewaite. Charley is embarrassed when he realizes that Boss told Sue his real name.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Charley is called ''Waite'', but his real name is ''Postlewaite''. ''Button'' is a nickmane, and Boss and Charley do not know his real name.

* EmbarrassingMiddleName: Boss's first name is Bluebonnet. You can't blame him for going by "Boss."

* TheMarshal: Marshal Poole is a corrupt one.

* ArmorPiercingSlap - Delivered by Sue to the corrupt town marshal in the middle of the final show down.
--> "You're a disgrace, Marshal Poole! [SMACK] You always have been!"

* AwesomenessByAnalysis - Charley, thanks to his extensive combat experience, is able to predict about 80% of the fight before it even starts, to the point of predicting what mistakes their opponents are most likely to make. ("I'm almost certain they'll be overly confident in their numbers..."), to the point of (as mentioned below) determining the most probable spots to cache spare weapons in town so they'll be available when the battle moves there. This ability to foresee most of the battle is the only reason two men are able to survive an attack by over a dozen. Charley's plan only begins to fall apart at the very end, as the last phase of the battle turns on several events impossible to know ahead of time (exactly when Baxter's men will have their nerve break, at what point the townsfolk will finally join in, etc.)
* BoomHeadshot - [[spoiler: Butler's]] fate.
* BottomlessMagazines - Played straight in the final show down. On various occasion, Charley fires a lot of more than 6 shots from his revolver. He's even fanning it to fire faster. When he switches the Winchester Repeating Rifle to engage targets from further away, he also fires a lot more shots than the magazine capacity allows. The movie occasionally shows characters reloading their firearms and switching guns, but most of the time they don't seem to need reloading.

* CardCarryingVillain - Butler.

* CattleBaron - Baxter.
* CombatPragmatist - Butler is the only professional killer amongst Baxter's gang of thugs and cowhands, the fastest and best marksman, and even with one arm in a sling the most dangerous opponent by far. Charley shoots him cold in the middle of a conversation precisely to avoid having to deal with him on even terms.
** Charlie and Boss are pretty much like this in general. When they see a bunch of guys scoping out the heard, instead of just riding headfirst into a gun fight,[[spoiler: they sneak up on them during the night and get the drop on them, before they can make a move.]]
* {{Cowboy}} - Working
* TheDragon - Butler
* EmbarrassingMiddleName - 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.

* GoryDiscretionShot - 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 [[spoiler:Butler]] is shot.

** During the final gunfight various characters [[spoiler:including Boss and Baxter]] get shot but keep fighting. [[spoiler: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.]]

* KickTheDog - The Marshall and his men kill the dog Tig, shoot the wounded GentleGiant in head and then nearly beat a boy to death.
* TheLancer - Charley, to Boss.
* MoralityPet - In some ways, Button (and to some extent, his other friends as well) are this for Charley.
* NoPartyGiven - Or, more accurately, no side given. Charley never says whether he fought for the Union or Confederacy in the Civil War. Although the odds are much higher that he fought for the Confederacy than the Union; the Confederates had several irregular units like the one Charley describes (Quantrill's raiders, "Bloody Bill" Anderson's men, Mosby's Rangers, etc.) that operated freely throughout the war, while the Union had far fewer (Lane's "jayhawkers" being the only really prominent one) and allowed them to operate for a much shorter period of time.
* PetTheDog - Charley saves a towns man's dog from drowning in the flooded street.

--> ''Baxter's Henchman tries the sheriff's door, and finds it locked.''

--> '''Baxter''' (''stares at him''): "No. You go down to the saloon, get the keys from Bill."

* TorchesAndPitchforks: Once [[spoiler:Baxter is defeated]], the formerly passive townspeople [[spoiler:hunt down his remaining henchman and shoot them on the spot.]]

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.

This film provides examples of:

* InstantDeathBullet: Averted with the boy. He survives when Butler shoots him. [[spoiler:Then he comes back in the climax, still bandaged, fires off a shot, and is shot ''again'', and survives.]]

* BottomlessMagazines - Played straight in the final show down with the Baxter's 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.
*** Negative, he was fanning the hammer.
** Later in the showdown scene Charley is shown to be reloading his pistol.
** After Boss and Charley bushwhack the corrupt town marshall 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.

* NoPartyGiven - Or, more accurately, no side given. Charley never says whether he fought for the Union or Confederacy in the Civil War.

A 2003 {{western}} film directed by and starring KevinCostner. 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.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: When one of the henchmen slowly circles the shack Boss is hiding in, [[spoiler:Boss resolves the situation by shooting him through the wall with his shotgun]].