FilmEdge.net reviews 3:10 TO YUMA

I usually run from remakes. I run screaming from remakes of movies I love. But I took an opportunity for an early screening of director James Mangold’s 3:10 TO YUMA, a remake of the 1957 Delmer Daves classic, and never took my eyes from the screen. Mangold has taken the basic storyline from Daves’ masterpiece and infused it with a modern sensibility that will keep audiences enthralled. Rarely does a remake rise to the original. In this case, I believe that Mangold has surpassed it. The plot is straightforward: Dan Evans (a beefy, brooding Christian Bale) agrees to transport the notorious robber and murderer Ben Wade (Russell Crowe, brutal but oddly likeable) from Bisbee to Contention. At Contention, Wade will take the 3:10 train to Yuma Territorial Prison for execution. Evans will use the two hundred dollars he earns for the task to save his farm. In a director’s nod to countless Westerns, Evans wears a white hat and Wade wears black, and the line between the two men — between good and evil — is very clearly drawn during the first scene. But that line is also a mirror, and we see more and more similarities between Evans and Wade as the film plays out. Both men are desperate, and both are charged with caring for others. Wade leads a gang of murderous marauders eager to do his bidding. It’s a motley crew of oddballs, and Wade rewards their obedience with piles of cash and punishes stupidity with a bullet. Evans’s family is tired, sick and disillusioned. His wife is trying to stand by him, his older son openly disdains him as weak and cowardly. But Evans is also the moral center of the town of Bisbee, driven by a sense of duty to his drought-plagued community. Dan Evans takes on the risky task to save his farm; Ben Wade whittles away at Evans’s resolve in order to save his own life.

Modern viewers will recognize Ben Wade as a sociopath, and Russell Crowe is perfectly cast as this manipulative, clever villain. He knows his understanding of human nature is his most lethal weapon and uses the weaknesses he finds in Evans and others to achieve his own ends. He is charming one second and deadly the next. He does not waste a word nor a gesture; everything about him is calculated and calculating.

Wade’s second-in-command is Charlie Prince (played by scene-stealing relative newcomer Ben Foster); a slight, effeminate psychopath who proves his machismo through sheer brutality. Wade is happy to let him do most of his gang’s dirty work. They’re the Hannibal Lechter and Jack the Ripper of the shoot-em-up set, and the most frightening characters to come to the big screen in years. There is a depth and intelligence to these evildoers that’s lacking in most Western bad guys. It’s a surprising and welcome change.

This current incarnation of 3:10 TO YUMA does stray from the plot of the 1957 version a bit, but the basics are all there. The psychological tension that builds between Evans and Wade while they wait for the train in a tiny hotel room is palpable. Bale masterfully conveys Evans’ fear and doubt as the zero hour approaches, and we are truly uncertain of what his actions will be. His fear leads to an overwhelming desire to prove his courage, first to his family but finally to himself. As he divests himself of the burden of shame that he carries, Evans strives only for redemption.

Crowe nails the nonchalant Wade, but we feel his underlying tension. He is self-confident almost—but not quite—to the point of foolishness. And it is this recklessness that drives the plotline of the film. Wade is an artist, and we see him sketching three times during the course of the story. As we gain insight into the complexity of this man, we see his drawings become more detailed and complex as well. This is a clever device well managed by Mangold.

3:10 TO YUMA rises above most westerns in two ways: its realism and the amazing performances of its cast. These tough guys of the great southwest are unshaven and unwashed. Their clothes are worn and stained. Their shots miss more often than hit. Finally, we see the “Wild West” as we know it was: dirty, threadbare, and clinging to hope with tired hands.

Look for outstanding performances from Peter Fonda as a single-minded bounty hunter, Luke Wilson as a bigoted, greedy railroad-crew boss, Logan Lerman as young William Evans, and the only two women in the cast: Gretchen Mol as Alice Evans and Vinessa Shaw as Emmy the barmaid. Both women are seduced by Wade in very different ways, and both actresses do a wonderful job of conveying their conflicting feelings about him. Look for Oscar nods all around in this gripping story that makes us question the lines between good and evil, morality and depravity, duty and self-preservation.