Dubious Morality

Rating: 6/10 (3 January 2011)

The Western fell out of favour amongst studios in the early 1970s . Much of this was down to the critical and commercial success of THE WILD BUNCH a shockingly amoral Western that blurred the lines between good and bad . Previously the genre was best known for its distinction between good and evil where the good guy would always seemingly win whatever the odds . With hindsight the reason this very limited concept survived for decades is down to the fact that audiences seem to love happy endings
3:10 TO YUMA is an uneasy mixture of the traditional Western and anti-Western . The story revolves around wanted fugitive Ben Wadee being captured by a posse in Arizona who plan to take him to the rail station at Yuma where he'll be taken for trial at a federal court . Wade's gang now led by Charlie Prince will do all they can to release Wade before he reaches the rail station
The problem with the film is that it wants to have its cake and eat it . Russell Crowe is seemingly well cast as Ben Wade and the audience are asked to emphasise with him . Unfortunately he's the leader of a gang of outlaws and the first glimpse we get of Wade is when his gang raid a coach carrying gold which ends with its escort being shot dead . Why should we feel any empathy for Wade ? Well he stumbles across Dan Evans and his two sons but doesn't kill them out of hand . Let me see now it's okay to kill people if you're carrying out an armed robbery but it's wrong to kill innocent passer bys ?
The film continues with this warped view of morality . Prince is painted as the villain of the piece despite being motivated by a code of honour where his gang will rescue Wade all any cost . Considering the rescue attempts cost so many lives could anyone blame Prnce for forgetting all about his mentor ? The more the film continues the more confused it becomes as to who the good guys and bad guys are and by the time the final climatic ridiculous shoot out takes place you'll be beyond caring what happens to whom
Narrative wise this is the sort of movie that could have been a mini-masterpiece if it'd been directed in the 1970s by Sam Peckinpah but with the ethos of New Hollywood with its radical view of morality dying out in the early 1980s we're left with a rather old fashioned film in a even more old fashioned tired genre