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Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2007)

I'm a tough customer when it comes to westerns. I grew up watching the likes of westerns as diverse as Tall in the Saddle, The Searchers, The Sheepman, Shane, and of course my all- time favorite, Rio Bravo. I like the old style westerns. Unforgiven never truly sold me. The other Eastwood spaghetti jobs were good for what they were, but still not what I would call good westerns. Dances with Wolves was a yawner. The Aussie set movies of Snowy River and Quigly Down Under were refreshing. Tombstone and the Young Guns, though cheesy as hell, get a pass for effort. More recently, I did enjoy Open Range.
So here is the remake. Thanks to the wonderfully drawn characters, both in the script and on the screen, 3:10 to Yuma scores high in my book. The landscape is there and so is the tone. The characters seem to really exist in the frame of their world and not in "a western." Some of the Eastwood movies are chock full of people who just seem to know they are caricatures of a western. Russel Crowe and Christian Bale are completely believable, sympathetic and fascinating in their polar opposite roles. I loved to see both of them on the screen. Their faces, body language and voices really feel right here. The only weakness i can point out when pressed, is probably Ben Foster's Charlie Prince. Foster just doesn't seem right here. Both in the movie and among his co-stars, he seems a bit out-gunned, so to speak.
Overall, this remake does a good job. It is in fact, a better movie than the Glen Ford original.
One wonderful thing about this film that has nothing to do with the film-making is the landscape. When I saw this film, I was doing an internship in Orange County, California and languishing in the daily traffic of Los Angeles and Orange County. Being a New Mexico native, it was really wonderful to see Santa Fe on the screen. The filmmakers did justice to the wonderful terrain of my home state.