3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Aside from a brief spurt of interest in the mid-'90s, Westerns haven't been box-office gold for four decades. The past five years have seen a number of ambitious oaters (Appaloosa, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), but few did any business until the Coens' True Grit remake proved a surprise hit last winter. With Disney said to be reviving The Lone Ranger and Quentin Tarantino lined up for a neo-Spaghetti, it's possible Westerns will come back, but I'm skeptical.

3:10 to Yuma (2007) is one of the more ambitious stabs at reviving the genre. With a prestige director - James Mangold, fresh off the much-garlanded Walk the Line (2005) - two super-stars and a $55 million budget, jampacked with action and mayhem, 3:10 is clearly geared towards a mass audience. But this remake of a venerable '50s cult classic sacrifices the original's focused intensity for expansive silliness, resulting in an uneven, unsatisfying film.

Rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) loses his barn to landowner Hollander's (Lennie Loftin) thugs, and has a week to raise $200. His wife (Gretchen Mol) questions Dan's judgment, and oldest son William (Logan Lerman) thinks he's a wimp. Dan and his sons witness a stagecoach robbery, and Dan helps apprehend gang leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), a legendary outlaw. Dan joins a posse, organized by railroad agent Butterfield (Dallas Roberts), to transport Ben to Contention, where he'll catch the titular train to Yuma prison. Surviving Indian ambush, a run-in with crooked miners and Ben's own trickery and temptation, Dan and the gang arrive in Contention, only to find Ben's psychotic sidekick Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) waiting.

The strongest memory I had of 3:10 to Yuma, before today's rewatch, was being waylaid twice by vagrants while going to see it in theaters, on two consecutive days. Because of this, I didn't actually see the film until it was safely on DVD in July 2008. That might explain the film's middling box-office returns: the target audience was too busy tangling with rapacious hobos.

Personal experience aside, 3:10 is definitely a film for 21st Century viewers looking for action, thrills and stars. It's hardly the first contemporary Western to target this demographic, and it's certainly less obnoxious than Young Guns or American Outlaws. It's also nice to see a Western starring actors a few decades younger than, say, Ed Harris or Robert Duvall. But many Western fans will reject its modern trappings, and even lay viewers might take issue with its problematic screenplay.

Mangold marshals an impressive production. The script remains close to the original's basic story, but expands the journey to Contention to allow for more action scenes and character development. The action often borders on the ridiculous, but the big set-pieces are well-staged, exciting and intense. Fans of the original might be disappointed that the suspenseful finale is replaced by a huge-scale running gunfight, but it's enjoyable enough on its own frenetic terms. Phedon Papamichael's striking photography and Greg Berry's rustic art direction provide a lot of nice pictures. Aside from Marco Beltrami's muzak Morricone score, the production yields little to complain about.

However, all the action and pretty scenery come at the expense of pacing and plot logic. Ben's escort must be the most incompetent posse in Western history: they let Ben get away with killing posse mates, twice, without any punishment but a few raps to the head. After a criminal kills two deputies and temporarily escapes a third time isn't it time to string him up from the nearest tree? At 122 minutes, 3:10 still feels about twenty minutes too long: Mangold wastes time on needless digressions (a shootout with renegade Apaches, Ben's trip to a mining camp) and a large but colorless supporting cast. Then there's the finale, with the original's already suspect twist mutating into absurdity.

3:10 further stumbles by trying to make its protagonists needlessly complex. The original's simple but effective battle of wills turns into a trite psychodrama. Dan spells out his motives in bright neon lights, every grunt and twitch explained by some traumatic past incident. His family conflicts are trite and cheesy, and Dan becomes unbearably pathetic. Meanwhile, Ben sketches his conjugal conquests, tempts Dan's son William and muses over his lost parents. This backstory is contrived and unaffecting; curiously, the more Mangold and writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas probe Ben and Dan's motivations, the less credible and interesting they become.

Russell Crowe gives a striking performance, nearly besting Glenn Ford in the original. Crowe dominates the film, giving Ben lots of superficial charm to conceal his snake-like nastiness. Christian Bale is intense but one-note, more pitiable than sympathetic. (And pray tell, how can a guy with one foot run and leap across rooftops so easily?) Ben Foster's psychotic second banana makes a striking villain, and Peter Fonda gets a nice supporting role as a grizzled Pinkerton agent. Gretchen Mol (The Shape of Things) is wasted in a tiny role, and the rest of the cast doesn't register at all.

3:10 to Yuma is a respectable attempt at bringing the Western to a modern audience. More jaded viewers will find much to criticize, however, and most Western fans should probably stick with the original.