Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a rancher living in post-Civil War Arizona struggling to provide for himself and his family, both financially and emotionally. Evans is on his way to the town of Bisbee to settle a dispute with his financier, Hollander (Lennie Loftin), when he stumbles upon a notorious outlaw named Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his posse robbing a carriage on its way to the town near their ranch.
They split ways peacefully before Evans rides back to find Hollander, who burned his barn and has threatened to burn down his house if Evans can’t come up with money that he owes.
Meanwhile, Wade and his even more ruthless cohort, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), are residing unsuspectingly in the local Bisbee saloon. When Evans bursts into the saloon demanding to speak to Hollander, Wade meets him and offers to pay for the costly encounter they had earlier. Evans stalls Wade long enough that the sheriffs capture and arrest him and decide to escort him to a nearby railroad town, Contention, where Wade is to catch the 3:10 prison train to Yuma.
After much hostility, the captors decide they need at least five men to escort the elusive Wade. Evans, seizing his opportunity to gain money, offers to help escort the wanted Wade for a price of $200, to be paid by wealthy railroad investor, Butterfield (Dallas Roberts), who has it out for Wade. The men set out on their trail to Yuma with Wade’s posse, now led by Prince, following close behind.
Christian Bale as Evans and Russell Crowe as Wade are both great choices for the roles. Both men are studious enough in their acting that they don’t try to steal the screen time from one another; instead, they let the characters come out so that the audience can choose which one to root for. It’s true that Wade is essentially the “bad guy,” but he’s just as dignified and well-mannered at times as he is psychotic.
Crowe understands this dynamic and does a good job of never letting on to either side of Wade for too long. Instead, he plays with the audience, letting them forget for a moment that Wade is cruel, then reminding them why he is in handcuffs. Crowe manages to make Wade a fairly charismatic character.
Bale, on the other hand, does a wonderful job playing a man whose struggles are both internal and external. Bale isn’t trying to play his character as a western hero or a Clint Eastwood cowboy, but rather as a man who’s just in this job for the money and for his family’s respect.
Stealing the show at times, however, is the nefarious Charlie Prince, played by Ben Foster. He has all the craziness of Wade and none of the class. Foster understands that at the heart of the movie, Prince, not Wade, is the true villain. He plays Prince with almost no likable qualities about him, and it’s hard to argue at times that Prince isn’t a real person thanks to Foster’s very convincing acting job.
Visually, the movie is very appealing. There are many long, wide shots that showcase both the beauty and seeming isolation of the western expansion. There are shots of sunsets over the Arizona desert, which aren’t cliche or cheesy but rather have a tasteful appeal to them.
Director James Mangold seems to be fascinated by the time period and the land and it shows in his camerawork. He loves to show the viewer a different time and a different place. It’s hard to go wrong when a director loves a project so passionately.
Mangold did his homework; even casting Peter Fonda in one of the roles, a nod to the prowess of Fonda’s father Henry in the westerns of the baby boomers.
In addition to the visual aspects, the soundtrack to the movie is something worth nothing. While the music is nothing spectacular, its brilliance is its ability to stop. Often, there was a dramatic scene that featured only ambient noise. Mangold effectively creates tension at times by having two characters staring each other down with only a fire crackling in the background of the tick-tock of a clock.
However, when the music is playing it isn’t a typical full symphonic orchestra but more the twing-twang guitar and harmonica that you would expect from the western, the kind of soundtrack that Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone made famous in the mid-20th century.
The only real problem with “Yuma” is the lack of urgency in the editing. For a movie based on time constraints, the film didn’t really make me feel antsy or anxious that the time was approaching, at least not until the last half hour of the movie. Taking a murderous prisoner to a train at a specific time should necessitate some sort of expediency, which just wasn’t there for most of the movie.
“3:10 to Yuma” was a great film all on its own, and most who see it will do so without realizing that it’s a remake. Mangold and the film’s producers did a marvelous job of casting the film, and as a result, the characters really come to life.
Mangold’s passion to remake a film he believed was already great showed on the screen. His direction, camerawork and overall delivery of the story were smooth and appealing.
Even without the sense of urgency, this movie gave a great ride. It has no final one-on-one shootout or anyone calling the other “yella,” but “3:10 to Yuma” is better than that; it’s both a throwback and a reinvention of the old western.