Not a chick flick!

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2008)

I hadn't seen an American western in many years until I watched this beauty several days ago. Thank goodness Cruise turned the project down because Crowe is brilliant and I can't imagine another actor imbuing the role with the nuances of dread and then gentle bon homme masking a sinister nihilism. Crowe very deftly moves from one into the other leaving me slightly tensed wondering which side he will light on and therefore where will the character go now.
Movies generally do not imprint themselves in my memory because of the acting but 3:10 to Yuma is the exception that proves the rule. Christian Bale virtually matched Crowe in his portrayal of Dan Evans who carried as much emotional baggage, albeit nuanced and therefore slow to become unmasked as the film progressed. The movie should be seen if only to watch this superb pairing of actors at war with each other throughout the film.
Strangely, the one other bit that I noticed immediately was the Confederate officer's coat worn by Ben Foster's character, Charlie Prince (I apologize if I am wrong about the character). My little pet theory revolves around the fact that the American West was so lawless and, dare I use the word monstrous, because the Civil War had just finished ten or twenty years earlier and those thousands of out of work Confederate soldiers descended on primarily Yankee settlers as well as Indians having their land stolen from under them--not a pretty mix. Putting a major outlaw character in a Confederate officer's coat makes, in my opinion, a hugely strong historical statement.