For a one-leg rancher... he's one tough son of a bitch.

Rating: 9/10 (17 April 2008)

I really hate remakes. They take a good foreign film and put in some WB stars and it is never as good as the original. Even The Departed, with a stellar cast list. was not as good as Infernal Affairs. So, I really didn't expect a lot from a remake of a great western, even though I am a Christian Bale fan and really wanted this to be good.
It was not only, good, but it was spectacular and I expect to watch it several times. Bale was in the best form of his career as a farmer trying to keep things together for his family. I could easily see everyman in his character, and he played it masterfully.
Russell Crowe was also the best I have seen him since Gladiator. He really played a much more nuanced character than I could have imagined, and I really enjoyed the ending where this nuance came out strongly.
Ben Foster was born for the role of Charlie Prince. He was as evil as evil gets and made you cringe every time he appeared to see what he would do next.
All of this suggests that director James Mangold had a tight rein on this film and delivered what will go down as a western classic.
The screenwriters, Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, and Derek Haas brilliantly turned Elmore Leonard's story into a compelling tale that had a lot of the flavor of the original, but was different in areas that mattered. They really did remake a film that was as good, if not better that the 1957 version.