We all remember the classics.
We remember John Wayne strutting nonchalantly into an old bar filled with drunkards or shooting it out with a posse of bad men in a western desert. We remember Clint Eastwood’s grizzled face smoking a fat stogie as he stares down a bad guy, just before he skins his gun to inevitably cut down said baddy.
But can anyone remember a recent western that didn’t use the genre as a comedy or alter it to be a more politically correct and all-encompassing statement movie? Not to take credit away from the likes of “Shanghai Noon” or “Brokeback Mountain”, movies that were done exceptionally well, but there hasn’t been a true-blue, well-done western cowboy movie in years. If you think I’m wrong, name one.
Still can’t come up with one? Neither can I. Don’t feel bad; it’s because there hasn’t been a good one made since the late 80’s early 90’s. And I stress that I’m not including “Dances with Wolves” because, seriously, that movie was not as good as people think it is. The only reason it won an academy award was because the academy thought maybe Costner would feel satiated and leave the business. Unfortunately it didn’t work.
That’s where we stand today, wandering aimlessly through a deluge of crappy horror movies and romantic comedies with no John Wayne or Clint Eastwood to bail us out with their Colt .45’s.
Just when it looks like this spiral is never-ending, leave it to two of the best, manly actors in the business to swoop in, almost Batman-like, to save the day. And yes, I know I just made a pun about Christian Bale, but give me a break. Let me preface this by saying 3:10 to Yuma is a good movie. Not a great one, but we don’t need a great western. There’s a part inside all of us that yearns for a good gun-slinging epic and, as such, we don’t need a great movie to feel satisfied from a western. And this movie satisfies on every level.
Penned by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas from a short story by Elmore Leonard, the story centers around a rancher-turned-hero, Dan Evans(played expertly by Bale), and his antithesis, a sociopathic robber named Ben Wade (Crowe). Evans(Bale), a former Union sharpshooter with a bum leg, is struggling to keep his family together, all the while trying not to lose his land to drought or the railroad company. He stumbles upon Wade(Crowe) robbing an armored car and, later, holding up in a town. They become attached at the hip as Evans decides to help the sheriff deliver Wade to a prison train headed to Yuma. Can you guess what time the train leaves?
The best part about this endeavor is the incredible interplay between Bale and Crowe. They work so well together it wouldn’t surprise me if they were best friends. At the tense moments, their icy stares are enough to make you squirm in your seat, while at other times, they seem like hetero life-mates. Crowe genuinely seems like he’s having fun playing the bad guy, so much so that I think he should look into doing it more often. He plays his character with such charisma and sociopathic charm that I would even compare him to Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector. Yes, I said it.
Bale, on the other hand, plays the brooding, cool and confident hero, once again, like no one else can. But the thing that makes it even more impressive is that he does it all with a nuance of vulnerability.
The direction is lively and well-paced, keeping you excited and interested throughout. The director, James Mangold, has shown incredible promise with his earlier pieces such as Walk the Line and Identity, and he continues that trend with this endeavor.
One thing I didn’t really like about the movie, and there isn’t much, is that it seemed a little far-fetched in how the relationship between the two main characters evolves into some sort of friendship. It doesn’t really make sense until about 10 minutes left in the movie. Even then it seems a little off, but it’s not enough to change the entire feeling of the movie and allows you to leave with a happy ending that works. That’s about as much of a spoiler as I’ll give.
As I walked out of the movie, thinking about the end, I couldn’t realize why I liked it so much when it used an industry ploy of making the ending a happy one for no reason. I couldn’t figure out why until I got to my car and realized that the film makers honored one of the most important theories in film: Redemption.
Redemption is an important part of any movie. But maybe this movie has more than just redemption within itself. Maybe, just maybe, it has redemption for one of the most classic of all genres in all of American film.
(*** 1/2) Jessicas out of four. This movie was solid fun.
AK
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