As pure a Western as there's been since 2005's 'The Proposition'

Rating: 8/10 (15 September 2007)

A remade version of the '57 Glen Ford picture of the same name, James Mangold's amped '3:10' is as pure a Western as there's been since 2005's 'The Proposition.' Tacking on an extra 25 minutes to his adaptation, Mangold proves a knack for the Western style, bringing to life a genre that seemed to have been gasping its last breaths, and stylishly retelling a model story for a modern audience.
His film, like the original, focuses on two men: Ben Wade (played marvelously by Russell Crowe), the fastest, most feared gun in the West; and Dan Evans (Bale), an unconfident, self-demoralizing rancher and Civil War vet. As Dan and his two sons go looking for their lost cattle, they approach the scene of an overturned armored carriage, which had just been maliciously attacked by Wade and his trusty gang. As it turns out, Wade had taken Dan's cattle and used it as a diversion in the robbery. Subsequently, Dan and his boys head back to the town of Bisbee, after gathering their livestock, to report the incident to town officials and inform them of Wade's intent to arrive there sometime shortly.
When Wade is captured off his guard with a woman in Bisbee, railroad director Grayson Butterfield offers a fine reward of $200 to anyone willing to escort Mr. Wade to contention, from where a train will depart to Yuma prison at approximately 3:10. Reluctantly, given the much-needed sum of the reward, Evans  whose unproductive land has been plagued by droughts and harassing attempts to force he and his family out for the sake of the railroad's construction  accepts the task, alongside four other volunteers (including a bounty-hunting Peter Fonda).
From then on, the film explodes into one of this year's most exhilarating films  as Wade's grisly right-hand man, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), leads a murderous brigade after the rescue of their leader  and culminates with a blood-bathy, gun-blazing conclusion that will have every hair on your body standing straight. Additionally, the performances are truly absorbing, especially those delivered by specialists Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, who delivers a performance that is heart-breaking, captivating, and uplifting all in the same. In fact, his character's struggles  the burdening thought that he is unable to aptly perform on his land due to an injury he sustained in the war that cost him one of his legs; and the exhausting notion that he's failed his family and himself because he can't provide for them as much as he'd like  are so despairing that we hurt for him on a very real, even physical, level.
The summation of all of '3:10''s gleaming aspects is a very big one  a valuable reward we get for the price of admission  and comes without the danger of escorting a vigilante as brooding as Ben Wade. Since the release of his previous film, 'Walk the Line,' James Mangold has been knocking on stardom's door. Well, '3:10 to Yuma' blows that door down  and does so fashionably, with a heap of the Old West's most volatile dynamite.