They were on their way to an easy 10 stars...

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2014)

Okay, I admit the first time I watched this it did not make as big an impression on me, but seeing it again I'm going to give it a 9. There are a lot of holes and flaws and "wha??" moments, but in spite of it all I really enjoyed it overall and it's somehow different. I don't usually watch a film a second time so I must have seen something in it.
Yes, a lot of disbelief needs to be suspended and tolerance expended, increasingly toward the end. In all these types of action movies you see these things like people being shot yet still able to run and fight and ride, but this one takes it further, stretching the imagination until it snaps. So why was I so willing to forgive and overlook? The performances, mostly, the complex layers of characters, and just that cat & mouse, back & forth, push & pull, and all the weird good guy-bad guy teamwork.
A combination Western and character study, we get long looks into the psyches of these two fascinating men, and little by little the motivations for their unlikely actions start to come clear. So many times throughout this movie Wade could have killed Evans, starting from the first 15 minutes. A lot of it was "the movies," of course, but I like to think some of it was how those characters would really have acted. To further attempt to explain it away...some of it could also have been that Wade knew he didn't have to try too hard, and was just making a game of it to amuse himself from the beginning.. Also I think Wade admires Evans more than his own son does, and he maybe felt, "A" for effort – the guy deserves to win a little.
Ben Foster as Charlie Prince blew me away, again even more the second time around. He bursts onto the screen, turbocharged, and just takes over the film. Simply riveting. A TV actor? No way! One scene and I want to watch everything he's done. He inhabited that character. Crowe and Bale are both absolutely superb and leave nothing to be desired. This movie made me a Russell Crowe fan all over again. Peter Fonda also shines as Byron McElroy, the hard-as-nails Pinkerton guard. Kevin Durand was good in this as well, though his character was rather one-dimensional.
Ben Wade was the most richly developed character: the level-headed, wise, enigmatic outlaw – ruthless, yet sensitive enough to draw and read and be a sweet-talking' lover. Wade is not evil; he claims he is, but even the boy sees this is not true.
The Dan Evans character was bitter and so intense. Stubborn, with the kind of stubborn pride that will get you killed. He wasn't doing it just for the money, and even justice was debatable when you figure all the good guys that got killed so that this one bad guy could get on that train. Mr. Butterfield was also very stubborn, as was Byron.
Will is the young son, on the accelerated track to manhood. Outwardly he idolizes Wade, but inside he already has all the best parts of his father.
Charlie was more a caricature than a character. But uncontrollable and psycho as he was, his adoration ensured complete loyalty.
It was an outlandish plan from the get-go (even if they somehow miraculously could succeed in getting him on the train, wouldn't Charlie and company then just go after the train?). Things really started to go downhill toward the end, and there are so many things I would change, but the suspense was wild, and in the end everyone got what they wanted I think. It's hard to find a good ending that perfectly resonates, and this was a good one in theory; if they had made the odds less impossible and tweaked it in a few other places, it could have been a great one. You never know if things like that could be the result of an executive decision by one person holding the purse strings, and I decided not to let that ruin the whole movie.
So enough redeeming stuff for an overall win: able direction, an authentic feel to the sets, some pretty funny lines, plus all the stuff mentioned above, but worth it for Ben Foster's performance alone. It was movie-making on a grand scale – the kind that leaves you changed after you come back down into your life, feeling invigorated the next day and giving you something to think about.