Best Western
3:10 to Yuma Keeps Viewers on the Edge of their Saddles

It is common knowledge that Hollywood has stopped making westerns in the numbers that it once did. I think there’s a misconception that American movie audiences don’t embrace them as they did in the heyday of the genre (say, 1950-1975). My opinion is that while today’s kids and teens might not clamor for cowboy movies, adult audiences will gravitate toward any period piece—be it a Victorian murder mystery or a tale of the Old West—as long as they get their money’s worth when it comes to quality entertainment.

That said, movie lovers will get their money’s worth and a fistful of dollars more with a trip to the cinema to see the new western 3:10 to Yuma, starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. It’s the best western in ages and most likely the best drama to come to Boone so far this year.

3:10 to Yuma is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name, based on an Elmore Leonard short story first published in Dime Western magazine. After a brutal stagecoach robbery, a small-time rancher named Dan Evans (Bale) agrees to transport a captured outlaw named Ben Wade (Crowe) to a town in northern Arizona where he will be picked up by a prison train. Along the way, Wade attempts to use his considerable charm and psychological skills to escape and rejoin his ruthless band of renegades.

Director James Mangold must have realized that if you are going to make a western where the guy in the black hat has some redeeming qualities and the guy in the white hat has his share of character flaws, you need to find actors who can play those shades of gray. Mangold corralled two of the best when Crowe and Bale signed on. (Interestingly, the role of Ben Wade was at one time going to Tom Cruise, not an actor who specializes in shades of gray.)

Evans is an honorable man, but one who is desperate to earn some money to save his cattle ranch and win the approval of his 14-year-old son William (Logan Lerman). A remorseless killer, Wade is the intellectual equivalent of Hannibal Lecter and in Evans he finds his Clarice, that rare captor who treats his prisoner humanely. Ultimately both men have to depend on each other at some point for survival.

If the casting of the two leads was somewhat of at triumph, it is equaled in the selection of the supporting players. Newcomer Lerman perfectly plays the boy wanting to become everything that his father is not. In a male-dominated film Gretchen Mol is terrific as Evans’ strong-willed wife Alice and Vinessa Shaw’s saloon gal Emmy Nelson makes the best of her limited screen time. Peter Fonda is nearly unrecognizable (in a good way) as aging Pinkerton agent Byron McElroy, and his unmitigated hatred for Wade puts everybody on edge during the journey to the train station. And look for an unbilled Luke Wilson to show up in the second half of the movie.

As Wade’s psychotic second-in-command, Ben Foster is amazing as crazy-eyed Charlie Prince. Devoted as a dog to Wade, Prince wills the outlaws to his leader’s rescue. Foster was previously cast as Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand and will star in the soon-to-be-released horror flick 30 Days of Nights.

If great casting is the recipe for 3:10 to Yuma’s success, expert pacing is the presentation on the plate that keeps the viewer hungry for more. At no time does this film lose its feeling of tension or mosey into useless digression.

The only thing keeping 3:10 to Yuma from being a perfect western is a somewhat ludicrous ending. Evans and Wade sprint across town, despite Evans’ considerable leg injury sustained in the Civil War, and find shelter from a hailstorm of bullets in a flimsy railroad depot. Despite the unbelievable nature of the finale, it is one fantastic ride getting there.

3:10 to Yuma is rated R for language and violence. It is currently playing at Regal Cinemas in Boone.