Open Range

Open Range (2003)

10 mistakes - chronological order

(11 votes)

Factual error: In the final gunfight, we see a close-up of Charley fanning the hammer and rapid-firing his six shot Colt Single Action Army nine times in a row. [Kostner has stated in interviews that this occurs because a short scene of him switching revolvers (he had a second revolver in his belt) was left on the cutting room floor. Still a mistake, but there's the reason.]

Continuity mistake: When Boss and Charlie are crossing the flooded main street (before rescuing the dog), Boss is holding his shotgun pointing up into the rain in one shot, then in the next shot (from a different angle), it's pointing down, then up again and so on.

Continuity mistake: Near the beginning of the movie, after the rainstorm, Charlie and Mose are digging and flopping around in the mud to get the wagon out of the hole. They are both covered in mud. As soon as they get the wagon out of the hole, Button says "Here comes Boss". As Boss rides up, Charlie is removing his gloves, which are now dry and free of mud.

Factual error: When the open rangers are camping, at the beginning of the movie, you can see what appears to be ski runs coming down a distant mountain. There were no ski resorts of this type in the 1800s.

Continuity mistake: When Boss and Charley hide in the Marshall's office to wait out the storm, they pull the shades on the windows. After Baxter's men come in and Boss and Charley lock them up in the jail, the shades are back up on the windows.

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Continuity mistake: Charlie's dog, Tig, is referred to once as a "she" and once as a "he". In the scene where Charlie and Boss are heading back to town to find Mose, Button indicates the dog wants to go too. Charlie refuses, saying "She's got the heart ... she ain't got the legs." Later, in the scene where Charlie buries Tig next to Mose, he says, referring to Tig, "... he was more his dog than mine."

Factual error: Kevin Costner fires 18 shots from one six shooter revolver, (and those 18 are just those which can actually be seen fired on-screen), during the big shoot-out at the end of the movie. A few more are heard and are implied to be from him - but not shown on screen, because the camera is jumping back and forth to different shooters. And even though he says, (in interviews), that there was a second revolver in his belt, which wasn't shown, that he switched to, he still would have needed a third revolver, even if those implied shots didn't come from him. They show him (during the fanning shot), firing one six gun far more than six times, without taking the camera off him.

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Continuity mistake: When Button is picking his feet Robert Duvall tells him to move downwind. After he does so, you can see many cattle on the hill behind him. The scene cuts back to Duvall and Costner. Seconds later cuts back to Button and the cattle are gone.

Other mistake: During the shootout scene, Kevin Costner is firing a single revolver while advancing across a street. He fires at least 10 shots from a six shot revolver without reloading. In just the part of the sequence where he fires multiple shots in rapid sequence into a single guy he fires 7 shots.

Factual error: In the final shootout, a man is shot with a shotgun, and the blast comes through a wooden wall. It blows his body clean across an entire street outside the building, and he hits the wall of the building on the other side of that street. This never happens with firearms. No one is ever lifted off their feet, let alone blown across entire streets, etc. Physics declares that for this to happen, the shooter of the gun would have to be blown back with an equal and opposite force.

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Mack: Shame what this town's come to.
Charley Waite: You could do something about it.
Mack: What? We're freighters. Ralph here's a shopkeeper.
Charley Waite: You're men, ain't you?
Mack: I didn't raise my boys just to see 'em killed.
Charley Waite: Well you may not know this, but there's things that gnaw at a man worse than dying.

More quotes from Open Range
More trivia for Open Range

Question: When Baxter and his men ride into town, he brings 8 hired guns with him for a total of 9; but when the fight starts, there are only 8. Baxter and 4 men confront Charlie and Boss, in the street, and 3 go round behind the buildings. What happened to the 9th man?

Answer: I believe he is the one being chased by the townfolks, after the gunfight is over.

Answer: The man you see being shot at in the end was the man who ran off once the sheriff had the kid, and Baxter was going to kill him. So, just before the shooting started again, this man ran off away from Baxter. What you see the townsfolk shooting at is this man who ran off just before the end, where Baxter and the sheriff had the boy and were counting down.

Answer: I noticed this as well. The person shot at the end of the film is the same man that was with the sheriff when they were held in the jail. He was a deputy and did not ride in with the land baron.

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