It just works...

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2010)

The western is an interesting genre. It can work either as plot driven or character driven. If we look at the 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma, we can see an excellent example of a plot driven western - the characters are little more than stick figures moving around within the plot - Ben Wade and Dan Evans never really come to life. While the 2007 film retains and even expands the plot, it is the character development of these two that makes this movie great. Russell Crowe's Ben Wade is as complex a character as we're likely to find and Christian Bale's Dan Evans only slightly less so. Others have complained that it drags - and it is 30 minutes longer - but those parts that "drag" are part of the character development. Of course, individually, we like what we like and those unable to follow what these two actors are doing should look elsewhere.
Just a word about "based on a short story by Elmore Leonard". The Elmore Leonard story is about 15 pages and plants only a seed of plot for the movie. That this movie could arise from that seed is masterful writing. It reminds me of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" which is based on a 39 page short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Again, Fitzgerald's story only plants a seed for what develops into a great story. (And Fitzgerald's short story isn't even one of his better efforts.) For me, movies fall into three categories - those I can't make it through the first time, those I can watch once and enjoy, and those that I can watch again and again, picking up something new each time. This is one of those in that last category.