3:10 to Yuma (2007)
NETFLIX SYNOPSIS: Rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) agrees to transport the captured outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the nearest town with a rail station, where they’ll wait for a train to court in Yuma. Holed up in the hotel near the station, Wade wreaks psychological havoc on Evans, while Wade’s henchmen plan their next move. Director James Mangold’s suspense-filled Western is a remake of the 1957 classic starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.
REVIEW: I’m not a fan of Westerns, nor have I seen the 1957 classic, but I have huge faith in and respect for Christian Bale, who has done a great job of selecting projects over his career. Even if the premise doesn’t sound so interesting to me at first, I know Bale can raise the film up a notch or two just by virtue of being in the cast and this flick is the latest stand-out in his long but diverse filmography.
Christian Bale plays the down-on-his-luck rancher and father of two sons whose property is about to be taken over by the railroad company. The film starts with one of the railroad’s thug “employees” taking a torch to Rancher Dan Evans’ barn in another pressure tactic to force him to sell. Russell Crowe plays notorious outlaw Ben Wade. Through a series of events, the rancher offers to escort Ben Wade to the 3:10 train to Yuma, which will transport the outlaw to a court of justice and a wished-for conviction and death sentence. It will be an extremely dangerous journey (least of all because Wade’s murderous, lawless gang, determined to get back their leader, will be on the little group’s heels), but Evans really needs the money so he can pay the debts on his land.
Those who don’t like (or don’t think they like) Westerns (like me!) will really enjoy this movie and begin to see the appeal of Westerns
(bad-ass outlaws, the pioneering, just-developing and thus wild, lawless west, cowboys and indians, shootouts). Separate from the Western genre, there’s action to satisfy action-lovers and an interesting relationship between captor and captive to contemplate, although as the movie progresses, you wonder who really is the captive. The director also included symbols of the cultural time and place - the true lawlessness of the wild west (see how the marshals vacillate), an exciting overnight stay in Apache country, an action-filled encounter with railroad workers, including a look at the “Chinamen” working on the railroad, visits to saloons and little outposts that serve as towns.
Bale again turns in a wonderful performance and (YES!) Crowe is finally back at the top of his game, as complex, confident and bad-ass as he was in Gladiator and you forget just how appealing he can be (to men and women) since he hasn’t had a great vehicle in a while to showcase his charisma. Watching the acting between these two studs was enough to justify the price of my movie ticket. Supporting roles were good also (Peter Fonda in a turn as a bounty hunter hired by the railroad, Ben Foster as Bale’s son, and other members of the armed escort service, including a compassionate vet and a set-upon executive).
The cinematography is beautiful (vistas of the red canyons of Arizona, stagecoaches rushing through passes with their valuable cargo, wonderfully set-up gunfights, wild horses and cattle) much appreciated on a theater screen. The score is wonderful as well and had me thinking Morricone would have been proud. I stayed through the end credits just to listen to the rest of it.
Some people have criticized the film as being implausible in parts. I disagree with that premise, but even if it were implausible, I say when a film is done well, executed well, with strong writing and great actors to execute it, the implausibility doesn’t matter or you don’t notice it. In a lesser film with a lesser story and lesser actors, my enjoyment of the film might have gone down a few notches, but this film most certainly was not one of those lesser films.
4 stars. Yee-haw!
Audrey
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Boy, did they screw this one up. It’s a pretty good flick up until the last 20 minutess, when it just becomes completely unbelievable (unless you live in a movie, I suppose). Throughout the film there’s some really nice interaction between Dan Evans, Bale’s reluctant hero, and Ben Wade, Crowe’s amused villain, and some good action sequences and shootouts. I liked how the members of the gang guarding Wade were picked off one by one along the journey and there’s some beautiful scenery, including a classic Western shot of Wade’s gang out in the desert ominously riding toward town.
Then there is one of the most bizarrely implausible moments I’ve ever seen in a movie, when Wade suddenly decides to “do the right thing” and help his captor get him to the train so he’ll be a hero in the eyes of his son. It’s one thing to plant the seed that the bad guy has redeeming qualities, that’s reasonable, and Crowe certainly has the talent to show us that he has that spark of decency buried somewhere in him. I could have believed him sparing or even saving Evans’ life, but to sacrifice his freedom, to voluntarily go to prison, is just inconsistent with the character and I didn’t buy it for a second (even with the suggestion that he won’t have any trouble breaking out, which was just a cheap attempt to justify the unjustifiable). A blatant, obvious plot device that fails on every level and spoils much of what went before it that worked.
3 stars
Harold
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Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a rancher fallen on hard times. Outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang are the nastiest fellas this side of our nation’s Senate. In exchange for the money that will help his family survive, Evans agrees to help transport the captured Wade to the tiny town of Contention (no symbolism there, eh?) where they’ll meet the train that runs to the prison at Yuma. Compared to either the original 1957 film or the Elmore Leonard short story, it’s obvious a conscious effort was made to make Wade a lot nastier and Evans more haunted by his failures in order to heighten the tension between the men. The supporting cast, which includes Ben Foster and Gretchen Mol (and a brief cameo by the oft-maligned Luke Wilson), does a terrific job, highlighted by a captivating turn by an almost-unrecognizable Peter Fonda. Plenty of action sequences, some of which are a bit ridiculous, were added to the story to quicken the pace, but at heart it is still a character-driven psychological drama, with Wade tormenting Evans with the consequences he will certainly face for trying to bring Wade to justice. It’s unfortunate that the script comes off the rails at the end, with some inexplicable character decisions, contrived to heighten the pathos of Evans’ revelation of his true motives.
4 stars
HAWK
