The Western genre is a dying one. Gone are the days of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, et al., and the era of Westerns in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Once a staple in American cinema, those films are now few and far between. Years could pass before a good Western connects with critics and audiences alike. Unforgiven reset the standard in 1992, connecting with critics and audiences alike while earning nine Oscar nominations and taking home four, most notably for Best Picture. Others have followed. Appaloosa, Hostiles, True Grit, Tombstone, and Open Range were big-budget movies that hit the screen with reckless aggression. True Grit was the most successful with the critics (10 Oscar nominations, but no wins), but even the success of this film fails when compared to Unforgiven.
Some recently highly successful and much-appreciated movies technically might be classified as westerns (Dances With Wolves, Brokeback Mountain, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country For Old Men). Still, I wouldn’t put them in the same category as the others mentioned above. To me, they are a different kind of Western. The westerns I’m referring to revolve around elements of cowboys, stagecoaches, ranches, saloons, trains, cardplaying, and gunfights. This is why James Mangold’s 2007 (Walk the Line, Ford v Ferrari) remake of 1957’s 3:10 to Yuma is such a memorable film.
Two of Hollywood’s megastars met at the crossroads of their careers. The first was Russell Crowe, who was five years after back-to-back Oscar nominations (The Insider, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind), and starred in his second western (1995’s The Quick and the Dead). Crowe plays bad guy Ben Wade as a ruthless killer, leader of a careless posse that sticks up banks, upends stagecoach, and is quicker to the trigger than anyone he meets. When he isn’t out slaughtering others, he spends time alone reading, drawing pretty girls and owls on his small sketch pad, or contemplating life. He’s different from the other members of his gang because he can have that introspection. Wade communicates so much with his eyes and quiet, understated inner direction. Crowe’s career has been on the downswing in the 13 years since this film’s release. He’s still starred in some memorable ones (Les Miserables, The Nice Guys, Noah), but he has been far quieter than the 13 years before the release of 3:10 to Yuma.
Then you have Christian Bale, who in 2007 was still three years shy of his four Oscar nominations in eight years but still had The Machinist, American Psycho, Equilibrium, and Batman Begins under his belt. Still developing himself as one of Hollywood’s elite, his performance as Dan Evans, a distressed but moralistic novice rancher heavy in debt due to an understaffed farmstead and a draught, was his most even-keeled performance. His wife Alice (Gretchen Mol – Rounders, Manchester by the Sea) and teenage son Will (Logan Lerman) no longer believe he can maintain the ranch. The stubborn but keenly aware Dan knows they are both correct but is unwilling to admit it.
When Dan and Will go into town to try to get an extension on what they owe, they witness from a distance Ben and his gang, which includes his right-hand man Charlie (Ben Foster – Leave No Trace, Hell or High Water), knock over a stagecoach and kill innocent men. Through a series of events, Ben is apprehended and handcuffed and ready to be escorted to the nearby town of Contention, where the 3:10 p.m. train will transfer him to the prison in nearby Yuma, where he almost certainly will face death.
Needing the money, Dan agrees to be a member of the transport party. Via horseback, with a handful of men he does not know, he chaperones Ben to Contention. It’s a journey that takes a day and a half. Ben is dangerous, and his gang is out looking for him. They will not be stopped if they find the convoy. Dan is faithful to his laurels, though, especially in front of his son. He’s a man who will do what he promises to do, even if it will cost him his land, his family, or his life.
The absolute pleasure of this film is not the setting, the score, or the cinematography, all of which are great. Nor are the action scenes spectacular. It is the slow build of each of our lead characters individually and then the relationship that forms between the two of them. It is the purposeful conversations that the men have with each other, knowing that neither has ever been around another person as intelligent nor as committed to a task. While their agendas are different, mutual respect is established in a very short time. Ben greatly admires Dan’s commitment to fulfilling his duty but tries his best to talk him out of it, not because Ben wants his freedom (he knows his boys will see to it that he is kept off that train), but because he doesn’t wish to see Dan’s son grow up without a father. Crowe and Bale have cinematic chemistry and brought the screenplay to life. Mangold, Crowe, and Bale’s unified vision made 3:10 to Yuma one of the best westerns of the last 25 years and one of the best movies of 2007.
Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
89%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Hostiles
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Tombstone
- The Hateful Eight
- True Grit