Writers should have caught the 3:10 to Yuma themselves

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2008)

The original 1957 "3:10 to Yuma" film with Glenn Ford (Ben Wade) and Van Heflin (Dan Evans) was one of my favorite movies -- just about the only Western film I cared about. The denouement (what else are you going to call the defining scene) where Glenn Ford did a reversal of his character and helped Van Heflin escape his (Wade's) gang was heart rendering and surprising. That's what a reversal in a story should be. Puts faith back into life -- yes people have real feelings and writers could pay attention to them.
It was the current writers, we presume, that changed the ending in the 2007 remake. It is my earnest want that you don't kill off the good guy in a movie like 3:10 because then there's no point to the reversal.
One of the main purposes of the original film was to do the impossible and have bad guy Wade save Dan Evans to live on because bad guy (Wade) had a human moment and for a myriad of reasons -- perhaps he realized what decency was like in the experience of being taken through dangerous ground unharmed by good guy Evans -- helped the both of them escape the gang.
This kind of storytelling is more than a shoot it up western, it's about man's humanity to man -- something we will see more of soon. The only westerns that have been loved well enough to survive are those that do show man's mental inner workings and occasional humanity to man.
Yet there's plenty to like in the 2007 film, but the ending spoils it for those in the audience who identify with the good guys. Wade was going to be able to escape anyway, so he could have saved Dan without too much self-sacrifice.
Oh, and the close-up on Wade's pistol that had a pretty crucifix -- was that supposed to allude to Wade's conversion to 'humanity.' -- Didn't work. Or to Dan's self-sacrifice? Let us pray. And there's was no satisfaction by that time in Wade's gunning his gang because Dan was already gone. Quel dommage.
Perhaps this remake went astray because it was too ambitious -- the father-son relation theme was played more heavily in 2007 than the 1957 movie, and the torture of Wade was outlandish -- Could be this was supposed to prove that Wade could feel pain. Also noticeable is that the bungling Potter was not played as much (that's okay though). All in all, very ambitious for a young team.