3:10 to Yuma
Rated: R
3:10 to Yuma served as a reminder to me. It reminded me that despite appearing in A Good Year and his phone-tossing escapades, Russell Crowe's one hell of a great actor. It reminded me that good westerns are few and far between. It reminded me that I need to get back to musing about how long it will take Hollywood to realize that Ben Foster would stop stealing movies if they would just let him star instead of play a supporting role. Finally, it reminded me that Christian Bale is a good actor but you can't cast him in everything. A remake of the 1957 western of the same name, the story follows the attempts to bring outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe) to a train that will take him to prison. Daniel Evans (Bale), a rancher who desperately needs both money and a hug because his ranch is dying and his family doesn't love him, signs up to bring Wade to the train station along with a posse that includes a greedy thug (Kevin Durand), a veternarian-cum-doctor (Alan Tudyk), a mercenary (Peter Fonda), and the hapless representative of the wronged and robbed train line (Robert Emhardt). The film plays with a lot of interesting ideas about redemption, honor, and morality but seems incapable of embracing these concepts. By the end of the film, the movie has become like an orator who lost his train of thought, thrown up his hands and said "fuck it," before engaging in a massive gun-fight. Director James Mangold and his cinematographer just can't photograph this film correctly and that's a shame because there's potential for some truly iconic moments. But more than the cinematography, story, and setting, 3:10 to Yuma survives on its acting. Fonda, Durand, and Tudyk give great performances and Crowe has me even more excited to see what he'll do later this year in American Gangster. Ben Foster turns in one of the year's most memorable performances as Wade's psychotic right-hand man. As for Bale, he doesn't give a bad performance as much as he's just compeltely wrong for the role. I don't buy Batman as a downtrodden loser. He's just too ruggedly-handsome. The role of Evans required someone who we could see transform over the course of the story and witness his redemption mirrored in his stature. 3:10 to Yuma isn't quite smart enough or stylish enough to be a memorable movie, despite several memorable elements. But if you enjoy the western genre and want to see some great performances, this isn't a bad ride to catch. Words by |