Nice But Not Great

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2019)

13 October 2007. 3:10 To Yuma tries but doesn't quite succeed in being great. The lines, the plot, and acting all seem to call out for increased applause and appreciation because of the nice flourishes and added touches that make this movie rise above many others. Russell Crowe's character Ben Wade has suggestive resemblances to the most famous of criminal heros - Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lector but never quite becomes that evil person we would like to take home with us, except by the end his character seems to decompensate and fracture into a somewhat confusing and perhaps too American movie studio caricature that loses a lot of its authentic appeal. The plot is strong, except with glaring flaws, such as when one counts the number of characters that Ben Wade is forced to kill later in the movie, two instead of three. Or when there is a stagecoach fire and no one appears to be screaming. There are number of overly convenient contrivances introduced in this movie in order to supposedly improve the movie but instead seem more artificially imposed on the story, particularly where and what happens when Ben Wade briefly escapes. There were even more opportunities for the script to have become even more edgy and emotionally compelling, like when Ben Wade's band of outlaws shoots some people in cold blood later in the movie that emotionally diminished one of the most important scenes in the movie where Dan Evans played by Christian Bale has to make a crucial decision regarding what he was going to do with Ben Wade. There is also a scene where Dan Evans's son, William Evans played by Logan Lerman, who comes to the rescue a number of times and one scene where he confronts Ben Wade and it is resolved in a fashion that appears too pedestrian without the sort of Ben Wade panache that would have been more likely to have been on display. Overall, this movie retains good pacing, nicely developed plot situations, consistency, and compelling emotional intensity while at the same time retaining a human sensitivity often lost among Westerns. This Western feels like a new and improved version of the genre, yet it failed to succeed in making it to the breakthrough that the producers, writers, and director sought. Seven out of Ten Stars.