broad, flavorful remake doesn't improve on original but is solid on its own terms

Rating: 7/10 (29 November 2008)

There is something to be said for attempting to view any remake of a classic film on its own terms, even if one has seen the original film on which it is based. Some remakes, certainly, have been made with good intentions in mind; some have been made with mercenary intentions for the most part in check; and a rare few even supersede the original to the point where they become the standard on which we base our opinions of every rendition of the basic story. Typically, large-scale stories with fantastic or fabulous elements tend to offer a wide range of interpretations and are, for me at least, much easier to envision in multiple versions. The 1940 "Thief of Bagdad" comes to mind as an example of the latter, as does Terry Gilliam's version of "Baron Munchausen". So three cheers for all the great remakes out there! "3:10 to Yuma", obviously, doesn't seem to fit into such a category. The original film is a spare, minimalist, rather low-budget B&W Western starring a couple of actors that never quite hit the A-list (Van Heflin and Glenn Ford) in what would be a defining moment for both of them. The new film broadens the canvas, literally (it's 'scope and color) and thematically, with the already fascinating parallels between struggling rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale in the Heflin-originated role) and brutal outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe, equaling and perhaps even exceeding Ford) deepened and expanded, the theme of the corruption that money brings to an essentially poor and land-based economy made much more explicit. The central story though remains simple: desperate Evans, a man unaccustomed to violence, agrees to help deliver Wade up for arrest for enough money to save his ranch.
For most of the length of the film, the original story and screenplay are followed fairly closely. The violence is obviously much more intense and explicit and the action scenes more drawn out, though never at the expense of the storytelling. We get more of an insight into the pasts of both men than the '57 version gave us; the gloomy Civil War wounding of Evans may have something to do with his feelings of inadequacy, his need to stand up for himself and the larger community of law-abiding citizens; Wade's artistic ambitions coupled with his awful childhood seem to have warped him into a psychopath with a veneer of civilization that increasingly threatens his brutal values as the film progresses. All of this, and an extended added scene in a railway camp, are offered I suspect to make the finale's striking reversals seem possible, if not exactly realistic  but it doesn't quite work. Bale's Evans is too weak, too introverted and fanatical all at once to seem much more than a "character"; it was hard for me to buy Crowe's growing sympathy for him, or for that matter Bale's ability to go through with his mission. And Wade is established as just too brutal and self-centered to be really believable in the final moments.
Still, the acting overall  especially by Crowe  the pacing, and the staging of the action sequences worked well enough to keep me entertained, and the over-the-top nature of the final moments actually didn't seem implausible until a day or two later. Well worth a viewing overall, and certainly more "true" to the classic Western genre than many recent endeavors.