3:10 to Yuma: take the last train to love for a gunslinger

Rating: 8/10 (28 September 2007)

The year; 1868, the place; Bisbee, Arizona, the time; three years into the reconstruction era post Civil War: where life, living, and love is as savage as a mindless bullet coming out of the end of the barrel of a gun, pointed at you! Every man, woman, and child wears a scar, either visible or in their hearts from the ravages of the War between the States. Ben Wade (Russell Crow) is the man in black, the leader of a ruthless band of cutthroats but an existentialist just the same. As incongruous as this may seem Mr. Wade is a lover as well. Enter Dan Evans (Christian Bale) a down on his luck, poor dirt farmer, and with a wooden leg to boot, compliments of a Union Army Surgon after a battle with a Confederate Army Regiment. Evans and his family are literally standing on their last leg, no pun intended, when after Wade is captured and a reward is offered to transport the bandit to catch the 3:10 train to Yuma Prison. Evans volunteers for the job to save his farm and his family. Wade the 'lover' has this profound effect on most everyone he meets. Either it is hero worship or out and out physical desire, the pheromones of Wade's chemical makeup has the same effect whether you be male or female. Then the existentialist, Wade comes out to play. If Wade cannot have the individual to play with, no one can. I nominate for The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor of 2007, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) who portrays Ben Wade's sadistic knife-edged sexually undefined Second Lieutenant. Prince brandishes a matched pair of 45. caliber Scofield break-action revolvers as Wade's side-kick and fellow roust-about. Directed by James Mangold and shot on location in New Mexico, the cinematography may well have paid homage to both John Ford and Robert Altman who directed McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Both of these 'giants' created and gave direction to actors, writers, directors, and others of the film industry whose debt was never expected to be repaid. Strange, how a 15 page, short, story, by an unknown copy boy by the name of Elmore Leonard, could influence Hollywood twice, over a span of 60 years and produce two separate and different examples of the western genre. The American Western, often copied, imitated, and mimicked, but never duplicated. The 3:10 to Yuma, best not to miss that train.