3:10 to Yuma
2007 Directed by James Mangold
"I don't believe you. You're not all bad."
"Kid, I wouldn't last five minutes leadin' an outfit like that if I wasn't as rotten as hell."
You like that line?? I sure as hell do. Let's just skip the foreplay and say that I loved this movie even more than spitting on people's heads from the second floor of the mall. I had a great time. At the movie, I mean.
Next month (jumps up and down like a japanese schoolgirl) we will see the release of No Country For Old Men, the new Coen Brothers film adaptation of the book by the same name by the great novelist Cormac McCarthy. In a way, you might consider that McCarthy's second assist on screen this year, because if you look close enough, it's obvious that Russel Crowe's portrayal of ruthless and sardonic outlaw Ben Wade owes a great debt to the similarly murderous character of "The Judge", from that author's dark masterpiece Blood Meridian. If you've read the book you'll see it just as fast as I did. The perfect mix of traveled wisdom and insanity, expounding philosophy one minute and stabbing someone in the neck with a fork the next. Nice. And of course, that familiar sketchbook.
But that's just an example of how inspired the characters are in the movie. More importantly, Wade is an infamous gunman who, after robbing a stagecoach with his posse, is on the run from the law again. He's a little too overzealous with his escape plan and is captured in a small town after taking way too long to finish sexin' up a green-eyed barmaid, proving my long-held theory that being a minute-man is actually a good thing. Take that, every woman I've ever known.
Standing behind the hand-cuffed Wade with a gun to his head is Dan Evans (Bale), a disgraced one-legged rancher whose lack of success, charisma, ambition, and bravery has left it difficult for even his own sons to respect him anymore. So when he accepts an offer to help escort the captured outlaw Wade to the train station where he will be taken to Yuma prison, it becomes more than just an opportunity to earn some much needed quick cash. It becomes his last chance at a respectable legacy, however small. If only they can make it to the train station before Wade's gang catches up to set him free.
With bullets! Dum dum DUUUUUUM!!!
There is no part of this movie that can be said to be anything less than a complete upgrade from the original 1957 film, which I admit I was never particularly a fan of. The man behind the improvements is director James Mangold, who has a knack for getting deep inside the head of the imasculated male struggling to regain respect. We've seen that in previous films on his resume, most notably Cop Land, which was a cowboy flick in it's own way. It might be time for this filmmaker's name to be more recognizable because he has struck just the right note once again, there is not a boring second in this film. And likewise, not a boring character. There is a rare overflow of talent at work here, from the two amazing lead performances down to every single minor supporting role. Peter Fonda as an aging bounty hunter, Ben Foster as Wades psycopathic right-hand man. But one of the big surprises for me in the movie was Dallas Roberts playing the role of the sheriff who arrests Wade and leads the transport to Yuma. We saw Roberts in Mangold's last movie, the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, where he played Sun records CEO Sam Phillips. Here he plays his character of Sheriff Butterfield with a certain restive nervousness that really serves as a huge part of the tension and constant fear surrounding their journey. You may have also seen him in the HBO show The L Word, but I doubt you would admit it in public, you silly goothe.
As consistently intelligent as the screenplay is, one major flaw is that you will definitely be asked to suspend your disbelief at Crowe's choices and motivations during the last, say, 20 minutes of the film. In that respect, it might have been better served staying truer to the original Elmore Leonard short story, instead of making the same mistake that the 1957 film does in softening the third act. But if you are able to let it slide, then you will be rewarded with one of the most entertaining movie experiences of 2007. And although I easily still consider this one of my personal favorites of the year, and truly hope that Bale is considered come oscar time, I have to say that with a more logical resolution it could have been more than just one of the best of this year. It could have been one of the greatest westerns of any year, period. Oh well.........like our sickly friend Roger Ebert always says, you can't judge a film for what it isn't. But he says that through a tube nowadays so maybe it just sounds more profound.
Either way, see this movie immediately. If you end up liking it even half as much as I did, I would also recommend a great (and greatly overlooked) western from Australia last year called The Proposition. And with two more supposedly superb westerns rounding up the last leg of 2007 (Brad Pitt's Assassination of Jesse James, and the aforementioned No Country for Old Men) I think it's safe to say that it's a great time to be a fan of the genre.
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