3:10. It’s the time the train to Yuma Prison arrives in Contention. The air is silent. The men are still. The guns are cocked. The clock is ticking. Praying won’t stop time. 3:10 is coming. Death may be coming with it.
3:10 To Yuma is remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford film and both versions are based on the story by Elmore Leonard. It is the story of gunman Ben Wade and rancher Dan Evans. Wade is caught after robbing a Pinkerton coach with his gang. Evans volunteers to join the posse escorting Wade to Contention. As they move closer to Contention and the 3:10 train, as Wade’s gang closes in on them, as they face a myriad of other difficulties in the wild west, it all comes down to a battle of wills between Wade and Evans. When it’s no longer about the money that will save Evans’s dying ranch, will Evans still make that walk to the train with Wade? When the guns are all pointed in his direction and death seems like the only option, will Evans still make his stand?
What makes a hero? Where is the line between right and wrong? When both sides are comprised of evil men, where do you make your stand? What do you fight for? What do you die for?
3:10 is about the battle of wills; it is about these two characters, men so different that they may actually be a bit the same. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade and Christian Bale is Dan Evans. If you’re not convinced to go see this movie right there, well, you should be. While I’m not always a fan of Crowe I think he is perfect for the Western genre. He has a roughness about him, that dangerous gleam in his eye. He belongs in the untamed, lawless lands, of the old west. He looks like a gunslinger. Christian Bale on the other hand is just brilliant. He is one of the best actors working today and I will see him in pretty much anything. Put the two of them together and nothing else matters. What you are going to see will be brilliant.
Not to say that it is going to be perfect. 3:10 To Yuma is not. There are a lot of problems with the film. I really was not a fan of the script for one thing. I don’t think it was very well written, there were a few plot elements that didn’t work for me, character development wasn’t great. The only thing that saves the story is the performances by the two lead actors. If it wasn’t for Crowe and Bale this would have been a mediocre film at best.
The other performances are all solid. Logan Lerman (The Butterfly Effect) is good as Dan’s son William. Ben Foster’s performance as Wade’s second in command, the psychopath Charlie Prince, is right up there with Crowe’s and Bale’s. Peter Fonda, Dallas Roberts, Alan Tudyk (Serenity), Gretchen Mol, and Kevin Durand are all solid as well. I think Mol, Lerman, and Benjamin Petry, who plays Dan’s younger son Mark, would have all benefited from better writing. As it is they’re all good. They just could have been better. The same goes for several of the other actors.
There is a tense moment when Wade and Evans have taken cover from gunfire. They crouch low together, catching their breaths. Evans is filthy and bleeding, Wade has been shot. Evans looks at Wade and tells him that he is not stubborn. He tries to explain to Wade why saving a small piece of dessert land is so important to him, what it means. Wade’s response? “Why are you telling me this?” Evans: “I don’t know.”
My point exactly. Why are we being told these things? A major flaw of this script is how much is just told to us through dialogue. I don’t want to be told about it, I want to see it. I want the story to evolve out of the visuals and the actions. I don’t want to be told who these men are. I want to discover who they are, I want to believe. Telling me story after sad story doesn’t help me get into a character’s head. His actions do that. It’s the bits that are unsaid that make a character into something more.
The cinematography and direction are not the best either. Director James Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael do not impress me. They did a great job working together on Walk The Line. However, for this film I don’t feel like they really grasped the needs of the story. I don’t really like a lot of the handheld, shaky camera work, especially during the beginning sequence. I found it to be incredibly distracting and off-putting. This improves as the film goes on but I don’t think the visuals are ever as good as they can be. There are a couple of explosions, one of which I definitely did not need. And as much shooting as there is, I almost wanted there to be more (more shooting but a little less gory blood. I like gore but here it felt unnecessary). Of course, that does go back to character development. At the end I did understand what they were going for but I’m still not sure I like how they went about it.
I did really enjoy the music though. The score by Marcos Beltrami is fantastic. It’s the kind of music you want to hear in a western. It complements the action and sets the tone. It just fits.
As a fan of westerns, especially Clint Eastwood’s, there was no way I was not going to see this movie. Especially with it’s cast. While I do think it could have been better, in the end I am happy with it. Again, that is almost completely due to Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. I’ve been a fan of Crowe in the western genre ever since Sam Raimi’s Quick and The Dead. I’ve been a fan of Christian Bale since I was a kid watching Newsies. Seeing them together is an absolute pleasure. 3:10 To Yuma is worth it for that alone.
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