Riveting

Rating: 8/10 (12 September 2007)

In "3:10 to Yuma," there is a cheeky simplicity to the plot that portends a much greater complexity--by setting up the story of crippled Civil War veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale), whose last shot at saving his foreclosed ranch and winning his family's respect is by helping transport notorious criminal Ben Wade (the coolly controlled Russell Crowe) to the titular train, it becomes a meditative character study on the always-blurry line between the outlaw and the working man. "3:10 to Yuma" reminded me fondly of "The Proposition," another neo-Western founded on a plot that was also deceptively simple, only to have painted a multi-layered portrait of humanity by the film's close. As Evans, Bale evokes a "stubborn" demeanor hiding a stronger will, and by the climax, he has persevered in becoming a man bound by a credo of lawful determination; Crowe, who is not quite his opposite, maintains the slithery reptilian charm of an outlaw who has been educated by his trade, but possesses and empathy and morality all his own. The film is at its strongest when these two developing characters share the screen, and the climactic sequence is as cathartic, exhilarating, tragic, and as strangely uplifting as anything I've seen so far this year. Director James Mangold brings an appropriately rustic, washed-out look to this thrice-told tale, and uses the camera as an instrument for putting us within the action. Yet while the violence comes in furious, mean bursts, it ultimately is a sidetrip to the psychological battle of wits taking place in the foreground. "3:10 to Yuma" is one of the year's best films.
7.5 out of 10