"You done it Pa, you done it..."

Rating: 10/10 (12 September 2007)

Utilizing the core story from the 1957 movie of the same name, James Mangold crafts a masterfully tense psychological Western that convinces this viewer that the genre isn't dead by a long shot. "3:10 To Yuma" is one of those rare re-makes that surpasses the original by building on the themes presented there, while adding finely crafted layers to the story that help define it's characters, offering a glimpse inside the minds of the film's main protagonists. Those who dismiss the movie because of it's ending fail to consider what happened along the way, as events that occur and dialog among the characters offer many clues to Ben Wade's (Russell Crowe) 'sudden' turn at the story's climax.
Where the film differs substantially from the Glenn Ford/Van Heflin version is in it's intensity, not merely for the gun battles and action scenes in the remake, but in the way outlaw Wade and rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) employ a battle of wills to counter their respective foes. By comparison, the 1957 film is almost entirely laid back, with Wade's outlaw gang occupying a largely secondary position in the story. The addition of Evans' son Will (Logan Lerman) to the core story proves important in developing the senior Evans' obsessive resolve in proving his worth to himself and his family. Even when offered a fully reasonable way out from his mission, Evans sees it as his duty to respect himself first, and use that opportunity to teach his son a life lesson.
For me, the turning point in the movie occurred when Dan Evans saves Wade from certain death at the coolie camp. Even though son Will later saw it merely as payback for Wade's role during the Apache ambush, something even more fundamental was going on with the outlaw's understanding of what makes his bodyguard tick. You catch a hint of it at the hotel room as Wade attempts to engage Evans in further conversation - "You mean we're still not friends?" By the time Will implores Wade to hold back his men, you have a genuine sense that events are conspiring to force Wade to see this rancher in a new light. As Wade declines and asks why - Will: "Because you're not all bad". Wade: "Yes I am". But by this point, he's not.
For those needing further insight into Wade's actions at the end of the story, I would refer to an early scene in the picture when Ben Wade killed one of his young outlaws when he failed to do a thorough job of inspecting the robbed payroll coach - "Tommy was weak, Tommy was stupid, Tommy's dead". Tommy, I might add, also didn't follow his boss's orders. Therein lies the motivation for Wade's intemperate dismissal of Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) at the finale - Charlie didn't follow orders. He was told to stop shooting by Wade, and he didn't listen. I would still suggest strongly that Wade's admiration for Evans was more of a factor, but Charlie didn't help his own cause.
Speaking of Foster, his was an excellent characterization of Wade's second in command, on the order of Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, or Keith Richards' Keith Richards. I also enjoyed Peter Fonda's interpretation of the Pinkerton bounty hunter, Byron McElroy. He seems to have aged nicely into a role suggestive of his late father, Henry Fonda, and all those great Westerns he appeared in. I also want to throw in a comment on the musical score as events headed to a showdown at Contention, highly reminiscent of, and sounding like an homage to the great spaghetti Westerns of the 1970's. I think Ennio Morricone would agree.
For those still in doubt about the ending, thinking it just too difficult to consider Ben Wade siding with Dan Evans, perhaps I can counter with a plot point I found to be hard to imagine. How would a career outlaw be able to quote so many passages from the Bible after a single reading over three days? That my friends, is truly unbelievable.