3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Written by Halsted Welles and Michael Brandt & Derek Haas Directed by James Mangold It seems as though the Western genre is indeed dead, no new ideas have come about, so modern westerns have all become revisionist indoctrinations of what was once the most popular genre in film. The western genre is the reason filmmakers, and their producers, moved the business out to Los Angeles, there was a lot of sunlight, meaning they could shoot outside more often, and there was plenty of landscape to shoot for the many westerns that were being filmed at the time. I think people got so inundated with the western, that even though there are still some good ones made, they feel that the genre is overdone, and there is nothing more to be said about them. This is where movies like Unforgiven, Tombstone, The Proposition, and now 3:10 to Yuma come in. Don't be mistaken, this is not a film in the same class as those I mentioned, nor is it merely linked through the fact that it is a modern western. No matter what I think of this film, it is rooted in the fact that it is a remake of a story first made in the late 1950's, when westerns were still profitable ventures for filmmakers and studios alike, and they were often still critically liked. The fact that this film was made today flies in the face of everything the original was, and I think that's part of the point. It's what makes it a revisionist western, as it's the same story, but told with a modern slant on the subject of good for good's sake, and what makes an evil man tick. Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) is a ruthless outlaw who is caught after he hijacks yet another stagecoach carrying a large amount of cash. Once he is captured alone, he is to be transported by a band of men, consisting of Doc Potter (Alan Tyduk), McElroy (Peter Fonda), a bounty hunter who was nearly killed by Wade in his latest robbery, Marshal Weathers (Luce Rains) and Dan Evans (Christian Bale). Each man has his reasons for going on the adventure to get Ben Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma, Arizona, where he will await prison. Dan Evans is an unsuccessful farmer, whose son William Evans (Logan Lerman) has lost faith in his father watching their family farm, and stake in life, turn to dust before their eyes. Young William reads the dime store western stories about Ben Wade, and looking for some type of success, he idolizes the criminal, and at the same time, looks to outdo his failure father. Dan, agrees to help take Wade to the station, for a sum of $200, so he can attempt to pay back wages he owes the man that owns his land. But it's about more than that, as Dan sees the whole fracas as an opportunity to stand up for what is right, and prove to his son that good will triumph evil, no matter the odds. Complicating matters is the fact that Wade's band of outlaw friends, led by Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) are on a deadly mission to break Wade free. Wade is a curiously intelligent man, and despite his ruthlessness, he respects Evans for his cunning and bravery, even if he is still willing to attempt to destroy him despite the respect. As in High Noon, quickly the number of people willing to deliver Wade wanes, and at a certain point in the film, they've made it to the station, they have to only wait on the train. Prince and the rest of Wade's gang catches up to them, and the cowardly local police and other members of the posse that have delivered Wade drop out of the situation in an attempt to save their own lives. William has tagged along, undermining his father, but not because he wants to see his father in action, rather, he wants to spend time with his idol, Ben Wade. The set up takes the bulk of the movie, with the final act coming down to the face off between Evans and Prince and his crew, at which point Wade has made a decision to let himself be delivered to Yuma. This is the only aspect of the film that really bothers me, as it is supposed to be a comment on Wade's intelligence, and how he respects Evans so highly that he has conceded his own beliefs and nature to actually help Evans defeat his own men. Like many good westerns before it, the film becomes a morality play on the nature of good and evil men, and it attempts to throw a monkey wrench into this fact by having Wade turn, in a sense, against his own men and let himself be caught. The problem I have here is I'm not convinced. I don't believe Wade has seen enough or knows enough about Evans to respect him on such a level that he would give up like this. It's just not there for me, so the fact that the 3rd act hinges upon this fact makes the rest of the action that follows seem preposterous to me. With that aside, as I said before, this is a good western, but not a great film. I've never been a huge fan of Russell Crowe, and I believe that's because I often don't buy his smirking nature as a true depiction of an actual character. I always feel like it is just Russell Crowe mugging for the camera. At the same time, I usually love Christian Bale as an actor, but here, he nearly takes his character too seriously. He's still good, he puts on a good portrayal of a character, but at the same time, his rigidness brings an unkind air to the film. However, the true performance to savor here is Ben Foster, who sinks into his role as Charlie (and every role I've seen him in post Flash Forward) with charisma, tenacity, and grit, bringing to life a complex character who is driven nearly mad with his own obsessions and violent nature. The direction is well done, nothing exemplary, but during many action-based shoot outs, you have a good sense of what is happening, who is where, and what is going on in the scene. The cinematography is well done, even though this is often easy to accomplish with beautiful western landscapes. There is no extra work done it seems, like there was in a movie like No Country for Old Men. While I like the revisionist stance taken by the screenplay and the general direction of the story, I still feel that it could have carried more dramatic weight, that it dumped that in favor of becoming a mainstream hit, as not to confuse the mass audiences. Even the central theme, about the things good men do because it is the only direction in their moral compass, often seems hollow and lacks a base in originality. It's a storybook version of the actions a real person would take, a simplified and overstated example of the story being told. Again, I think this was partially marred by the fact that I didn't buy Ben Wade's change of heart, his intelligent analysis of a character that even the audience can't wrap their heads around, even though they've seen much more than Wade has. Either way, it's still a good film, I just think it could've been a great film, instead of just a good western. It lacks the depth, feeling, and thought of a movie like Unforgiven, but that's not to say it's bad in any way. I rather enjoyed watching it, but being the armchair quarterback that I am, I couldn't help but wish they had done a lot of things differently. In the end, this film is well done on all accounts. Despite my gripes about the acting, the script, and the theme, it is still much better than most films that are made today, but to me it is inexplicable that this film sits in the IMDB top 250. Surely it does not carry that much weight in mainstream markets, but I guess the numbers don't lie (except for IMDB's screwy weighted voting system). 8.6/10