See the 1957 Glenn Ford classic instead of this over produced disaster

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2008)

*** Major spoilers included *** Yes, this one has more explosions and graphic violence than the original, but that does not make it a good film.
As at least one other comment here pointed out, the story is totally illogical. We are supposed to accept that a previously cold-hearted killer grows to like the good guy family man yada, yada, yada trying to bring him to justice. So what if a hangman's rope is waiting, he wants to make Dan his pal. We even get little anvil on the head hints at what's to come later. Like Dan's son saying the killer has some good in him. He can see it's there. They even make Ben's victims, after Ben meets Dan, out to be jerks right before he kills them. To justify their deaths we assume-"Hey, he insulted his mom and did bad things in his past, he deserved to die". Or "He had to stab him countless times in the throat with a fork till he was dead...he was a total jerk and even burned Dan's barn down"... The final illogical straw was having notorious Ben Wade kill all his own gang members that risked their miserable lives to free him? Why because he developed some kind of guy crush on a farmer. Just plain stupid, done obviously for the shock value to the viewer. Even the sex scene between Russell Crowe's character Ben and a girl he seduces seemed contrived and pointless. Like it was stuck in the film to show his character wasn't gay. Otherwise we might later think he had a crush on Christian Bale's Dan and that's why he was attracted to him and wanted to get on that train. Of course then they would have to change the film's name to '3:10 to Brokeback Mountain'.
These are just a few examples from the avalanche of illogical moments in this film. Yes, the actors were all good and no expense was spared for explosions and running horses. To bad they didn't have a well written story to do the actors and horseys justice.
For those western fans that haven't seen the original 1957 film this was based on, see it. That movie is immeasurably better. Beats me why this turkey remake is rated so highly here.