Even with its flaws this is a truly great Western of the 2000's

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2011)

I was quite skeptical in watching the remake of one of my favorite westerns of all time since that was a film in which I wasn't expecting much but gained a lot of surprises. I love it! The 1957 version directed by Delmer Daves, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, is extremely surprising, tense, perfectly build and very interesting to see. But it turns out James Mangold update of the story was really interesting, very surprising and really great just as the classic. But there's some slips along the way...
The story is the same, the approach and how it unfolds in front of you is completely different. The masher and not much frightening villain Ben Wade played by Ford is played like an violent, smart and bloody guy on the hands of Russell Crowe; while the honest and at times peaceful Dan Evans of Heflin is played with the same integrity but more dangerously by Christian Bale. Aside these differences here's the plot: Ben Wade, the most wanted criminal of the west and his team got succeed in another money robbery but after staying on their first stop Ben was arrested by the local authorities. Their decision is to escort him to the train to Yuma, which leaves at 3:10 of the next day. Until then, he'll be on the hands of some Pinkerton guys and of rancher Dan Evans, who joined the team because he needs the reward promised so that he can save his ranch from the control of abusive men. However, escort these man won't be that easy. Ben's group, now led by the creepy and violent Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) will hunt them down wherever they go, leaving a trail of blood on the way. Get ready for the shots, persecutions on horses, and for a frantic cat and mouse game where nothing is predictable and fairness might even surpass injustice when it seems Wade is willing to cooperate with the poor Evans.
This is a truly great western as we haven't seen it in ages. The quality of performances couldn't been better, not only Bale and Crowe bring some innovations to the classic roles, but this new version has the advantage in two things in terms of character development and performances. Ben Foster playing the mean Charlie Prince was terrific, the guy has a natural quality of making everyone terrified, and he was more like a villain than Crowe/Wade was. The other great role of "3:10 to Yuma" is the rebel teenage son of Dan, played by Logan Lerman, who helps the almost trained team in their hard duty. Here's this underrated boy who always wants to make part of things along with his father, always wants to pick a gun and do some justice and he's always pushed back, but when the moment comes he's ready for action. The way Logan played the character, with a constant tension in his eyes, a mix of fear and curiosity in what's going to happen next was amazingly great.
Now, here comes what's bothered most viewers and myself. We've seen the Wild West in films or tales as being something brutal, violent, no country for weak or dumb men and what "3:10 to Yuma" presents is something that quite gets there but it differs in quality and presentation of it. There's so many inconsistencies, plot holes, absurd things that one might think this was a place for idiotic moves, ridiculous ideas, and intriguing things that could make someone wonder why such things happen and how did it happened. If you don't notice while watching the movie, just take a look at the boards here and see for yourself the amount of problematic things the screenplay has. It bothers me not knowing how can three armed guys let Ben run away, they didn't shoot him because he had Evans gun and he just shot the Indians who were shooting at them; the way they handcuffed Ben throughout the whole thing, allowing him to kill two members of the team, that was awful; and there's plenty of others. All that didn't ruined the movie for me, a movie is more than just little technicalities that can make it believable or not. But the one that really annoyed me was the ending (completely different from the original, in theory they have one little similarity). Why's that? I won't say what happen but I'll justify why it didn't convinced me: 1) it was totally unexpected, okay, sometimes this is good but here it went way absurd what it followed after one principal death and 2) the reason why the ending of 1957 worked was that the whole way Ben had the chance to know what kind of man Evans was, therefore he didn't caused many troubles along the way and go for the train. Let's say, the bad guy has some ethic. Here, Crowe never gets evident or gives a possible, plausible explanation of why he took the train (the film gets a little lousy after that, but nothing that could ruin it). The script tried to sound poetic in this particular moment saying words without speaking, leaving possible interpretations for us but it wasn't that convincing.
I enjoyed for its tension, its action, the thrills of great sequences (the climactic final shootout with Evans escorting Ben through a whole city against them is outstanding), the good performances of the cast and for showing that the Western genre hasn't died yet. 9/10