3 10 to Yuma (2007) - movie review

3 : 10 to Yuma – rating (4/5)

Cast : Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster, Logan Lerman, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol

Directed by James Mangold

Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard

Review by Zulfiqar

            Ben Wade is a famed outlaw, who masterminds looting carriages with bank money and doing stick-ups. He is a great shot. He has a posse with a dangerous and faithful right-hand man, Charlie. To Charlie, his word is law and he would go any extent to fight for his boss. Ben doesn’t give hoot even after he is captured because either Charlie will see him out or his notoriety itself will find a way. Ben kills with no mercy and has no fear. But, he is an artist. And there lies his redemption.

            3 : 10 to Yuma is a classic western, because it has that righteous hero and dangerous adversary. But it is a great modern western, because the villain considers enemies at his own valuation. He doesn’t follow the rule book. He doesn’t bask in the sycophancy by his cohorts. He knows he is surrounded by crooks and cutthroats. Being an artist, he also considers what is there at the diametric opposite of cruelty. His art rejects him from having a loose trigger-finger. He does meditation while making pencil sketches of eagles and bar-girls. As much as that meditation inculcates in him composure, it also pushes in a modicum of culture.

            From the protagonist side, there is Dan ( Christian Bale), a debt ridden ranch farmer, who has a wife and 2 sons to feed and pay his debts. His elder son, William (Lerman  Logan) openly despises him for being weak and helpless. His younger son however considers him a war-hero. Strangely Dan considers his elder son’s hatred soothing rather than his younger son’s hero-worshipping, because he is a failure as a father. He gets his one chance to prove himself and earn a fat sum, by escorting the felon, Ben Wade, till his boarding of a train, bound for Yuma, where he will be hanged. He soon understands that this journey has no purpose because Ben Wade’s name itself will liberate the outlaw. Soon, he understands that he will be stranded on the mission and how long will he go to get justice done in the land.

            James Mangold’s great strength lies in the description of his characters. He wisely employs the big name of Russel Crowe for Ben Wade. Crowe fits the bill of Wade as he generally does it while playing rough characters. His body language makes it easy for being the alpha leader of the group and Charlie to be his sidekick. In the manner of handling guns, he is adept and quite a gun-slinger. Christian Bale did a great transition at that time from being a playboy vigilante to a defeated father and a rancher with a weather-beaten face. As a righteous man with responsibilities, his performance is meditative and calculating.

            But it’s the performances of Ben Foster as Charlie and Logan Lerman as William, who make a big impact on the movie. Ben Foster has the screen presence when he rounds up posses and when he moves broodingly around his master like a wolf. Logan Lerman shows his maturity in his performance in the final scene where he looks at Ben Wade with an intensity very rare to see in movies. He gains the audience’s ill-will at the start by being an indifferent kid to his father, but his actions have a reason. However, his turmoil at the end gives his role the full definition.

            The action sequences in the wilderness are ruddy tough and dusty, and live upto the new-age technicalities of stunts. There isn’t any meaningless excess of the action, which might spoil the mood. Screenplay by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas takes the cue from a short story and an earlier made film, but has a refreshing originality to it. Mangold’s vision for this heavy budget project has right choices for Art direction and Costumes, which is clinical in setting up the bare-bones and flesh of the old-western world. But it is his emotional details, which makes this movie (for me) the great modern western.