Today I watched the 2007 western 3:10 To Yuma starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. The film is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard and is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name.
Movies like this could single handily revive the western genre. Director James Mangold has crafted a taught, suspenseful picture that is both a western and a character study of two men, who are different, yet very much alike.
The movie is about a struggling rancher who volunteers to be part of a posse that is to put the captured criminal Ben Wade on the 3:10 train bound for Yuma prison.
The movie belongs to Russell Crowe as the stage coach robbing gang leader Ben Wade. But Wade is a lot more than a gunslinger. He is an artist, a student of the bible, a philosopher and most of all an observer of human nature. His gang sees him as ruthless, but mostly he is an opportunist and a pragmatist. He does what must be done. Crowe acts with a quiet intensity and as you watch the film you hang on every word. You know that underneath the confidant exterior there is a mind at work, always thinking, always planning and always studying. Wade knows he is smart. And he sees himself in the rancher Dale Evans who is his captor.
Christian Bale plays the rancher, who prays to God for a small break and God doesn't listen. The drought has destroyed his ranch and the railroad is working to push him off his land. He struggles to provide for his family and feels that he has lost their respect, but most of all he has lost respect for himself. Then after crossing paths with wade twice and each time not backing down to him, he volunteers to join the posse to earn $200 for his family. Bale plays the role with the same seriousness he brings to all projects. He is man at the end of his rope, yet he will not make the easy choice that will allow him to live, but will cost him his last shred of self respect.
While the plot details the efforts to get Wade safely on the train, the movie is really about the relationship between the two men. Crowe and Bale are great together and their is never a misstep in their performance.
There are two other great performances in the film. Peter Fonda as a Pinkerton bounty hunter out to capture Wade and Ben Foster as Wade's loyal right hand man.
The film moves at a fast pace and the momentum is maintained in the quiet scenes because of the tension created by Crowe's character. The movie also has an authentic feel to it. It looks like a western. The town's are dirty and there is dust in the air that makes your throat parched watching it. This is one good western.
At The Movie House rating ***1/2
3 comments:
Quite a good review od 3:10 to Yuma. I enjoyed this movie very much but I found Bale to be the more interesting character...that being said you are ri9ght on with your comments.
I appreciate the way you go back at some of those unsophisticated movie goers, particularly the idiot who did not like cartoons. I wish to remain anonymous because I fear that fool may come after me for comending you
I found the Russell Crowe character to be the more interesting. He was surprising. You were never sure of what he would do or why. he has a reputation as a vicious killer, does he kill because he likes it or because he has a reputation to maintain.
He rides with a group of men and he knows he is smarter than all of them. He has no interest in the bounty hunter, McElvoy, because he is a man of little intellectual curiosity. But he meets the Bale character and enjoys talking to him, taking his measure and in doing so reveals more about himself.
Bale is very good but from Batman to Terminator to Rescue Dawn he plays everything with the same broody intensity.
I ought to see the movie again because you have refreshed me and Crowe was good...but for some reason, when I think of that movie I remember Bale in it and not Crowe so much
I watched Cold Mountain again the other night...That was a good movie
Have you seen True Blood. that m,ovie has grown on me significantly. He is very good
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