Kevin Costner's 2003 Western Still Has One Of The Best Shootouts Ever

Kevin Costner has made plenty of great movies throughout his career, but he's especially good in the ones where he gets to play a cowboy. Costner keeps making Westerns because he doesn't feel comfortable in the city, and as movie fans, we should all be thankful. If Costner didn't make horse operas, he might never have directed and starred in "Open Range." And if that never happened, we wouldn't have been treated to one of the best gunfights in cinema history.

"Open Range" sees Costner play a reformed gunslinger who is forced back into action to overthrow a corrupt rancher. With the help of a cattleman named Boss (Robert Duvall), he visits said rancher's town and starts firing bullets in all of the villain's goons — and it's intense. One dude gets a bullet right between the eyes, while another gets blown halfway across the street after taking a bullet through a wall. The town is also blown to smithereens as bullets blast through windows, walls, and properties — which only intensifies after the townsfolk get in on the action to help the heroes.

Of course, the shootout mainly works because it's the big payoff to a great story about vengeance. "Open Range" takes its time getting to its violent climax, but it's more than worth the wait since the film does a great job of making us care about the characters. That said, Costner didn't set out to create an action sequence that's purely about entertaining viewers. He wanted viewers to come away from the experience feeling terrified.

The shootout in "Open Range" is epic, but Kevin Costner wanted it to reflect the destructive nature of gun violence. Oftentimes, movie gun fights are entertaining and fun to watch, but the climactic moment in "Open Range" is full of intensity, horror, and hard-hitting violence. Here's what Costner had to say about his goals for the scene in an interview with Roger Ebert:

"I know I'm going to get my gunfight. That's an obligatory thing, and I was happy to do it and wanted to do it. But I think guns should be loud in a movie, and scare you. The best anti-gun message is that [there's] a result after guns go off. It's not just people who are hurt. Animals are hurt, and buildings are torn up, and people are scarred for life."

The actor and director also noted that real gunfights produce casualties, which people then have to clean up off the streets, sometimes resulting in them feeling sick. It isn't glamorous or pretty — and this is a message "Open Range" conveys with aplomb.