Entertaining and decent remake

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2008)

Teaming up Christian Bale and Russell Crowe for a high-noon and gunslinging western seems like a good idea, it seems even better when it's Walk the Line-director James Mangold who's operating this. Although Walk the Line suffered from being a straight-faced drama, he knew how to get the best out of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Whiterspoon - and that surely promises good things for Bale and Crowe to come.
Russell Crowe plays the gunslinger Ben Wade, a black-hearted villain who (as usually) has got a pounding, charming heart for sketching and women. Christian Bale is the family man Dan Evans, with a heavy debt to pay he decides to lead Wade (together with some other, amateurish men) for the reward of 200 pounds.
3:10 to Yuma is a bit of a disappointment, after watching it you get the weird feeling of all the things they could have done different. But after all, while watching it is a enjoyable movie that's got a fine look for down-in-the-dirt Wild West and pulls out believable characters and story. Crowe acts Wade with a professional glee, as soon as Evans' oldest son William gets drawn into the picture, it's obvious that the 14-year-old "disappointed-over-his-pa" boy is more fascinated than scared by Wade. And that's not the only thing that gets a bit too calculated, the plot swifts easily throughout without eager to surprise or swagger. By the time Bale and his gang starts heading Crowe for the 3:10 train to Yuma, the movie feels a bit dried up, not very boring, but not all that interesting. However, the movie pulls out a great card by the end, it's a solid, though not thrilling, ending that puts some sparkle into this deserted story. Don't get me wrong; 3:10 to Yuma has got a straight-forward, tight story to tell, but Mangold should have been twirled some pieces and kept the viewers more off-balanced, making it a welcomed western-installment for its originality. Instead Mangold makes some of the same mistakes he did with walk the Line, he plays it too much by the rules.
Bale and Crowe are better together on the screen than apart, their dialogs may not blister, but they're just as neatly tied together so actors of their class know how to handle the material, and its especially Bale's Evans, who's at first a bit-of-a-bored character, who shines through as a earnest, struggling man, risking his family security so he can bring justice to a man who keeps him worried about them in the first place. The action set-pieces are decent, they play out like a 2007-version of a Bonanza episode; a bit more brutal, a bit louder and much slicker. 3:10 to Yuma doesn't feel like it finds its place, and does thereby suffer from this; but in the end it's a decent Western.