September 09, 2007
I love a good western
There’s a new cowboy movie in town, and Pajiba has the scoop.
[A] good Western, a chance for two men to square off with guns on a desert plain in some great big unholy shootout, damned to hell and joylessly grinning as they ride off to face destiny — that’s unbeatable. And that’s what director James Mangold brings to 3:10 to Yuma, a violent, sweaty Western that inhabits the genre’s melodramatic hallmarks while also functioning as a modern-day drama about a dysfunctional family. It’s a big, sprawling, believable story, and the plot’s few stumbles are balanced by the scope and skill of the whole thing.
The film is a remake of a 1950s feature starring the wooden Glenn Ford (whose stardom has always mystified me) as badguy Ben Wade, based on a story by Elmore Leonard, the writer better known today for penning "Get Shorty."
In the new version, a down-on-his-luck farmer named Dan Evans (Christian Bale) finds that his fate has become entangled with that of bankrobbing gunslinger Wade (Russel Crowe). After a series of twists and turns, Dan is tasked with helping escort the dangerous prisoner to a waiting train.
The transporting of Wade takes up the bulk of the rest of the film, and that’s what sets it apart from many other Westerns. The drama here largely comes from the battle of wills between Dan and Wade, who hold a grudging respect for each other even as they loathe what the other man stands for.
Dan … and a couple of lawmen set out with Wade for Contention with the goal of putting Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma, where he’ll be hanged at the prison. It’s a simple plot, almost elegant: Move the man from point A to point B in X amount of time. But that simplicity is the source of the film’s tension, as Dan deals with Wade’s mind games and the entire gang tries to stay one step ahead of Wade’s gang, who want their boss back and would happily slaughter any who stand in their way. And more than a few men, good and bad, do get slaughtered, but the body count is never ridiculous, nor the bloodshed extreme.
There’s a believability about the film that borders on the low-key, even in the multiple shootouts between the posse and Wade’s gang, and a big part of that comes from the central dynamic between Bale and Crowe, who are so perfect in their roles that they at times seem to be in another movie altogether, something dark and weird and Shakespearean, where two men face off against each other not out of need or desire, but out of some twisted sense of fate.
Crowe’s Wade is a ruthless killer, but never once loses his composure; hell, he never even gigs his horse or yells at it, just makes soft clucking sounds to guide the animal down the path. His eerie calm grounds the character, making him that much more formidable an opponent for Dan.
Bale, meanwhile, brings the right note of desperation to Dan, who’s weary and heavy-laden enough to do anything to save his family. Wade tempts Dan throughout the film with offers of a cash reward if Dan will let the killer go free, and the legitimate conflict between a burdensome right and an easy wrong is played out beautifully on Bale’s face.
[…]
“No one will think less of you” if you let Wade walk away, Dan’s wife, Alice (Gretchen Mol), tells him. He gives a sad grin and says, “No one can think less of me.” Taking Wade to justice is Dan’s chance to finally be recognized not for finally doing the right thing, but for doing the right thing all along. He’s not a warlike man, but he’s willing to become one if that’s what it takes to do his duty and save his family.
Mangold’s tightly focused film is a good example of the glorious possibilities of mixing a compelling character story with a richly detailed genre setting, as well as the latest in a series of modern Westerns — Unforgiven, The Proposition, “Broken Trail” — that herald a comeback for the field. It’s about time, indeed.
Sounds like it might be worth braving the trip to the local cinema – if I can stand the chattering id’jits and their incessant texting and ringing cell phones.
Grrrr.
But I do love a good western, and Crowe and Bale are two actors that always make a film – any film – better for having them in it.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 9, 2007 02:08 PM
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