Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Russell Crowe
Christian Bale
Ben Foster
Peter Fonda
Gretchen Mol
Directed By:
James Mangold
I'm gonna get a lot of heat for this. Let me first say that I find THREE-TEN TO YUMA, the short story, a fine piece of literature. It's pretty short (twenty-five pages), but it's a tense and intimate scene in between two characters who are not as different at they think they are. I'm sure I'm not the only soul that asked himself how the hell a director turned this into a two hours movie. From the short story setting (a hotel room), it's hard to imagine a compelling two hours western with the setting a stage play would have. Let me save you two hours of your time and tell you this. The short story is the last half-hour of the movie. What are the first ninety minutes made of? An over-dramatic explanation of how Ben Wade and Dan Evans found themselves in such a tight spot together. It's long, not very well-paced and blown out of the simple, direct style that makes Elmore Leonard good. The latest adaptation of 3:10 TO YUMA is all style over substance. It's nothing to claim the genre has been brought back to life.
In this adaptation, the life of Dan Evans (Bale) is put under close scrutiny. To the screenwriters discharge, he is a complex and interesting character but I'm sure he shined more on paper than on screen. He's a quiet man seeking a peaceful life on his estate, but he owes money all over town and is put back against the wall by his creditors. Fortune places him on renowned bandit Ben Wade(Crowe)'s path during a particularly bloody robbery and Dan rises to the occasion and captures him. Like those who read the short story know, he's supposed to escort him to the 3:10 train to Yuma prison. But it's not as easy as it seems. Ben Wade has been a good gang leader (he looks like a flat-out good guy to me), so his right arm Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) makes it his mission to free his boss.
Now, I think everybody that participated in this adaptation is a little guilty of its flatness. Russell Crowe is interpreting Ben Wade with absolutely no subtlety. He's supposed to be an ambiguous character, but even when he has good lines to deliver, he never sounds like a guy who could hurt a fly. The screenwriters have written only ONE good scene before the events from the short story start. It's a scene where Wade and his escorts are around a campfire and where Wade kills one of them with a fork. The guy was heckling him and making fun of his probable demise. It's the only scene where Wade is openly aggressive towards one of the "good guys" and it doesn't require much acting talent to stab a guy to death convincingly. James Mangold has no sense of flow and movement. His scenes are long, static and often boring. All together, they even found a way to not be completely true to Leonard's story.
No, I didn't like 3:10 TO YUMA and I stand by my word. I have not watched the 1957 adaptation, so I have no way of knowing if it's an adaptation from the movie or the short story, but I'll tell you this. There are so many awesome westerns out there, you shouldn't waste your time with this one. Go watch THE WILD BUNCH or THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES again. Hell, go watch the YOUNG GUNS movies. They are a lot better than this. Director James Mangold has proved to be capable of the best (WALK THE LINE, GIRL INTERRUPTED) and the worst (COPLAND) and this is not far from there. I wanted to like this movie pretty bad, but it's just a very fade adaptation of a short story that's beaming with like and moral ambiguity. There are movies (westerns, Elmore Leonard adaptation even) more worthy of your time and interest.
SCORE: 30%
Recommendation: Don't watch it. Blow the dust off your Sergio Leone DVDs and rewatch those instead. They will satisfy your need for a good western.
