Wrecked by ending

Rating: 5/10 (20 February 2008)

I haven't seen a western in ages and I've really enjoyed Christian Bale's work over the years so I thought I'd give this a try.
Overall the acting was pretty good. Bale's character was an atypical protagonist and had more layers than in a typical Hollywood film. Crowe was pretty charismatic, even tho I can only stand to see him once every 5 years. Ben Foster as Crowe's right hand man was also pretty cool. Between him and Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men (tho Javier edges Ben out by a couple notches) it's been a good year for western baddies. Peter Fonda and Alan Tudyk were also great. Nicely turned with some real nuances.
So for most of it I would say it's pretty good - not great but more than serviceable. Great films break barriers and set new rules so serviceable is still pretty fun.
Then Crowe goes "Disney" (unconvincing change of heart whilst strangling Bale) and I couldn't really focus on the rest of the movie because I realized that the bottom had just dropped out. OK, Bale tells him a sob story about how pathetic he is and then Crowe stops killing him. That I can believe. But then when they suddenly become "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" buddies, leaping over rooftops, even shooting his own gang...Holy Bat-cows Batman you've lost me. I even went to the IMDb board and there are some good posts about how Crowe's character wanted to throwaway this life of crime, and admittedly there are several scenes which could be interpreted that way, but the way it was directed or acted it just didn't ring true at his final "apotheosis". A good film doesn't require you to sift through scenes looking for possible explanations. I mean in a mystery film sure, but based on the swelling score I don't believe Ben Wade's change of heart was meant to be a source of David Lynch-ian conjecture and reconstruction. There are other plot holes as well, especially Peter Fonda riding a horse after being gut-shot and when a Gatling gun barely makes an impact on horse mounted bandits - but that's Hollywood and I can forgive heroic hyperbole for the sake of plot. But that last bit really sunk this one for me. I don't know how the original story went but it almost would have been more interesting if Ben Wade had been accidentally winged by the $200 mercenary town folk, Charlie goes ballistic on the townspeople, Wade then shoots Charlie out of indignation, then escapes while Christian Bale rubs his throat (living for another day). Okay I guess that could use some work too, but at least I could swallow that more than what ended up on film.