The western makes a seeping comeback...

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2008)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) finally slips up when he and his men try and highjack a Pacific Western train carrying buckets of money belonging to the treasury. The authorities catch him and want him sent on a 3:10 train to face trial in Yuma. They persuade struggling rancher and former soldier Dan Evans (Christian Bale) to escort him, which he agrees to do to set some things right in his life. But as he learns about Wade on the trip cross-country and his philosophy to life, his loyalties and duties become sorely tested.
The western is a genre that's starting to crawl back out of it's cracks recently, what with Tommy Lee Jones's 2005 offering The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and now this slightly more mainstream offering. No doubt written off by many as a thing of the past, back when Clint Eastwood was a big star, this distinctive type of film is thankfully slowly starting to see the light of day again.
Director James Mangold has captured the essence and spirit of the genre wonderfully here, crafting a slow, atmospheric and undeniably tense film with great casting in the shape of Crowe and Bale as the respective villain and hero. The story is engaging and well written and keeps you gripped to the end.
It doesn't quite come off as a brilliant film, but on the other hand there's nothing really to complain about with it. A strange thing to say, I know, but all you can do is see it for yourself and make of it what you will. ****