Film Review: 3:10 to Yuma

Director: James Mangold

A 2007 Western that was a remake of the original film from 1957, it was written by Elmore Leonard who unfortunately died last summer but leaves behind a legacy of some brilliant screenplays and books that he wrote. Mangold came onto the project after the success of his previous film Walk the Line. At the time many commented on the hiring of the two lead actors for an American Western as Russell Crowe is Australian and Christian Bale is English, although Bale performs much better in the accent stakes.

Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a war veteran who works on a farm with his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol) and two sons. Their barn is burnt to the ground and they lose all the cow feed they have left as Dan owes money to local loan sharks. Elsewhere we see Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) holding up the payroll cart to steal the money after a long pursuit by his gang lead by Charlie Prince (Ben Foster). When Wade is finally caught, Evans seizes the opportunity to make some big money by helping escort Wade on the 3:10 prison train to Yuma and avoid getting ambushed by the rest of Wade's gang.

Ben Wade (Crowe) and Dan Evans (Bale)

After a pretty intense and captivating first act the film slowly falls flat with a rather dull journey to Yuma in the middle section and a rather poor ending. It was a disappointing development of the old story when an honourable and conscientious man clashes with a law breaking thief. Certain aspects, as the film developed, became rather obvious and a bit cliché which may be a problem with the source material being from 50 years earlier but still could have been remedied.

The interactions between father and son were rather forced and obvious at times but Bale does but in a decent performance as the noble Dan Evans. Russell Crowe is capable at best as the villain whilst Ben Foster arguably puts together the best acting performance as Charlie Prince, who is completely loyal to his boss. Its not a bad film but was it worthy of remaking the original? I'm not so sure.

2/4 Early promise is quickly doused.