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3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Director: James Mangold
Movie review
From Time Out Chicago
Given that Crowe and Bale are far better actors than Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, why isn’t the 2007 version of this classic Western superior to its 1957 predecessor? The scenario, based on an Elmore Leonard story, remains essentially unchanged: Eager for a $200 reward, a struggling rancher (Bale/Heflin) pledges to escort a notorious bandit (Crowe/Ford) to the train that will take the latter to jail, but must contend with the bad man’s pursuing henchmen.
The inferiority of the remake can be expressed numerically, as a function of its bloated bullet-to-injury ratio. Of the 12 shots fired in the 1957 version, five find their mark, resulting in a pleasingly lethal BTI score of 2.4. In the remake, approximately 8 trillion rounds are fired (we lost count during the Gatling gun sequences), of which maybe 80 hit home, resulting in a loud, soporific score of 100,000,000,000—ten times the Peckinpah Constant!
Comparable inflation undermines the bad guy’s effectiveness. As played by Ford, outlaw Ben Wade was shrewd and ruthless but human. Here, he’s Hannibal Lecter in a Stetson, a Scripture-quoting superman capable of killing his captors any time he likes. And when he’s belatedly given a ridiculously sentimental motive for submitting to captivity, we heard Lee Van Cleef puking down from gunslinger heaven.
Author: Cliff Doerksen
Time Out Chicago Issue 132: September 6–12, 2007
User reviews of this film
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- Jan said...
- Posted on Jan 20 2008 21:13 Agree with your review. I fast-forwarded through the DVD's ending, I was that bored. I love Crowe in anything but this part had a huge motivational chunk missing and I didn't buy it. Too much shooting gets old. I wish the script had allowed for a stronger agent of change in Crowe's character. If one wants this film to be about coming of age then the main character should've been the boy. As it stood, I just kept thinking the kid would suffer the rest of his life from PTSS. Started out good, but quickly unraveled into a bloody mess.
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- Chelsea said...
- Posted on Sep 07 2007 23:57 I cannot believe a solid 1/3 of this review whined about the discharged ammo in relation to the body count. As every true Western fan knows, the underlying message of the story takes precedence over the actual action. Christian Bale is a war vetern turned rancher, not the jaw-dropping gunslinger-by-trade that Russell Crowe embodies. This film is about honor, coming of age, and the importance of doing the right thing - much loftier points than how many bullets were fired.
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Cast & crew
Director: James Mangold
Producer: Cathy Konrad
Cast: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Logan Lerman, Ben Foster, Vinessa Shaw, Alan Tudyk, Dallas Roberts full cast
Genre(s): Westerns
Rated: R
Duration: 122 mins
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