"Open Range"
Starring Robert Duval
139 minutes
2003

Robert Duval plays "Boss" in this movie about a small
civil war in the Wild West. "Open Range" is more realistic
artistically speaking for the people of our time than many
of the original Westerns. There are no swarms of natives
to holler and die as in "Comancheros." In the end, defeating
eight people and then four drunks ends up being key. There is
character development for many of the villains.

A capitalist sets up shop in a town and buys a sheriff. He then
proceeds to kill "free grazers," cowboys who make a living
by herding their cattle across open fields. The underlying
conflict is economic.

Two good cowboys and an injured young assistant end up defeating
company town's plans to erase freedom. The price was high. Many
died, but in the end, many of the townspeople assisted in killing
off the villains.

As the last major villain sits dying of gunshot wounds, he learns the
price in blood of the shoot-outs and Boss asks him "for what? some cows?"
Indeed, it was a destructive fight over some cows. Today, there is no
longer the possibility to get a few good people together and restore
justice in a town. Huge organizations to fight "over some cows" have built
up vast surpluses and armies of guards, lawyers and other lackeys. That
is to say the "bad guys" simply got bigger, and a handful of guys like
Boss cannot topple corrupted organizations by themselves.

Disgruntled Amerikans imagine this is why they oppose "Big Government"
and "Big Corporations." However, at the same time, many of the same
Amerikans are trying to extend "Big Government" all the way into
Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea etc. At MIM, we believe it is futile to
complain about "Big" anymore--not on a planet with six billion people. 
Life just is not isolated towns in the
Wild West anymore. What matter is control of organizations. What irritated
Boss was that one capitalist tried to eradicate his means of living by killing
his people. Yet even Boss has considered other lifestyles. It was not so much
the lifestyle but the control over the creation of lifestyles that
was underneath the conflict. Capitalist greed prevented an offer to Boss
and his friends that would have worked. The goal of capitalism is to create
economic strife on behalf of the individual, so it can never give everyone
a sense of participation and control. That's why we need socialism and
then communism.