Remake Has Strong Cast

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2008)

The cast of this movie is the main reason to watch it. Christian Bale & Russell Crowe give strong performances. The reason this film does not rise into a stronger rating for me is that the special effects while dramatic are sometimes beyond belief.
I understand that special effects can be used to great excess and be very effective from Bales recent The Dark Night outing though what makes them effective there is great acting. The thing is, in the Western genre, if the special effects get over-done, it stretches the imagination beyond the believability factor. That is what happens here.
If you buy into the strong acting performances, you don't mind the stretch. If your looking for strong western believability in story, you do. I am in between these on rating this as the effectiveness of the acting does at times make you look beyond the story and more into the character of the men acting it.
This film does make Wade, the main bad guy, appear to be a tormented man who does things for reasons other than his main motivation. Bale is very effective as the farmer, civil war vet who is supposed to take him in.
The story is exactly the same as the 1957 film of the same name, but I think this one illustrates actors in development, while Van Heflin & Glenn Ford were already mature star actors when they made their version. Still, the cast in this one is solid. The extra time this version runs developing the characters is time well spent here.