Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
9/8/07
The
sun has mostly set on the Western, which once dominated escapist moviegoing
in much the same way Science Fiction does today. In some ways, it's
been a positive development for the genre, one I'm not that historically
fond of, because today pretty much only the best Western screenplays are
ever filmed. Some of my favorite movies in the genre (including Open
Range and the criminally underrated The Quick and the Dead)
are from the last 15 years, the time after Unforgiven really cemented
the notion of the Western as Moral Crucible. In a time when life
and death were daily struggles and the only law to speak of was Survival
of the Fittest, characters' courage and ethics can be tested with an iconic
power the modern-day drama can't match. Such is the case in 3:10
to Yuma, which pits a timid rancher and a cunning gunman against each
other in a battle of wits that will settle for both men the question of
exactly who they are.
Dan
Evans (Christian Bale) is at the end of his rope. His ranch sits
on land coveted by the coming railroad and the bankers have done everything
they can to make it impossible for him to make his mortgage payments.
He lost half a leg in the Civil War and his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol) and
older son William (Logan Lerman) no longer respect him. To make the
money he needs to keep the ranch, he jumps at a chance to join a posse
escorting outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a prison train so the railroad
company his gang has tormented can have him publicly hanged. The
posse includes, among others, a Pinkerton detective (Peter Fonda), a veterinarian
(Alan Tudyk) and a representative of the railroad (Dallas Roberts).
Wade is as charming as he is vicious and when William insists on joining
up with the posse, it's unclear whether he's doing it to back his Dad or
stick with his new hero. One by one, Wade kills the men escorting
him, all the while turning up the heat under Dan. By the time they
arrive in town to meet that train, it's just Dan and his son against Ben's
entire gang, led by his even crazier second-in-command (Ben Foster).
Can Dan summon the courage to fight his way past them and catch the 3:10
to Yuma?
Even
when his movies aren't so great, one has come to expect big things from
the actors working with director James Mangold. Angelina Jolie and
Reece Witherspoon have won Oscars under his direction, one can argue that
it was Kate and Leopold rather than X-Men that made Hugh
Jackman's career take off, and he's gotten elite performances from actors
like Ray Liotta (Cop Land), John Cusack, Amanda Peet (Identity)
and Robert Patrick (Walk the Line). But 3:10 to Yuma
for the first time puts him at the helm of a movie as good as its' acting.
Bale and Crowe are nothing short of sensational, and while the film gets
off to a leisurely start, it tightens the screws of suspense more
and more until the final half hour is just about perfect. It's then
that the characters begin to surprise both themselves and each other with
what they'll do under the ultimate pressure of that march to meet the train,
and both Mangold and the screenplay (Michael Brandt & Derek Haas
building on Halsted Welles' 1957 adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1953 short
story) keep the tension of infinite possibilities at a fever pitch.
You
couldn't ask for a better Battle of the Bands between that stars.
Bale is so good at being beaten-down and miserable that it's often all
he gets to showcase in his roles, but what makes Dan really special is
the way he grows in stature and in spirit as his options diminish.
Once he passes the point where any normal man would back down, watch how
his face finally begins to light up like he's never felt more in control
of his own destiny. Crowe couldn't be more perfectly cast as Wade,
a character we need to like, at least a little, without ever rooting for
him to escape his date with the train. Unlike his demented gang,
he seems to have simply chosen crime as his vocation as a matter of expedience,
and comes off as both intelligent and vaguely sensitive. Of course,
both of those attributes allow him to impress Dan's family and lure young
William toward the dark side. Even for us in the audience there's
a certain “He only kills bad people... right?” hopefulness where he's concerned.
Yet he's also so coolly calculating and cheerfully violent that you just
don't know what to think. And the way the two stars play off each
other during the finale is a treat for any fan of film acting.
Characters
are interestingly unpredictable across the board. Even the guy from
the railroad proves more human that you'd expect in the end. And
not all of the human nature we see is positive: watch how Charlie's
able to add dozens of new members to their gang on the spot once they've
got Dan surrounded.
Like
any good Hollywood Western, 3:10 to Yuma looks great. Phedon
Papamichael's cinematography is rich with frontier colors, while Marco
Beltrami, a composer whose work I often find too large for its' own good,
does well with the genre's limitless potential for grandiose flourishes.
One question about the credits: why exactly is every member of Crowe's
entourage (his assistant, drivers, dialect coach, costumer, etc.) billed
as “JOB TITLE to... Ben Wade”? Just curious. I hope Bale didn't
have to call him “Ben” off-camera (or sleep with one eye open).
3:10
to Yuma is a wonderful morality play in the best tradition of the Western
genre. It provides two of our best actors with two of their best
roles and delivers the action goods as well. Long live the Western!
Well, as long as they're good... |
