3:10 to Yuma (Widescreen Edition)

Buy This Item 3:10 to Yuma (Widescreen Edition) by Lions Gate  Available from Amazon  $14.99  on 9-23-2008     Here's hoping James Mangold's big, raucous, and ultrabloody remake of 3:10 to Yuma leads some moviegoers to check out Delmer Daves's beautifully lean, half-century-old original. That classic Western spun a tale of captured outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford)--deadly but disarmingly affable--and the small-time rancher and family man, Dan Evans (Van Heflin), desperate enough to accept the job of helping escort the badman to Yuma prison. Wade, knowing that his gang will be along at any moment to spring him, works at persuading the ultimately lone deputy to accept a bribe, turn his back on "duty," and go home safe and rich to his family. That the outlaw has come to admire his captor intriguingly complicates the suspense. All of the above applies in the new 3:10, but it takes a lot more huffing and puffing to get Wade (Russell Crowe this time) and Evans (Christian Bale) into position for the showdown. Mostly, more is less. To Mangold's credit, his movie doesn't traffic in facile irony or postmodern detachment; it aims to be a straight-up Western and deliver the excitement and charisma the genre's fans are starved for. But recognizing that contemporary viewers might be out of touch with the bedrock simplicity and strength of the genre--not to mention its code of honor--Mangold has supplied both Evans and Wade with a plethora of backstory and "motivations." At the overblown action climax, the crossfire of personal agendas is almost as frenetic as the copious gunplay. (By that point the movie has killed more people than the Lincoln County War.) Best thing about the remake is Russell Crowe's Ben Wade, a Scripture-quoting career villain with an artist's eye and a curiously principled sense of whom and when to murder. As his second-in-command, Ben Foster fairly pirouettes at every opportunity to commit mayhem, and Peter Fonda contributes a fierce portrait of an old Wade adversary turned bounty hunter for the Pinkerton detective agency. --Richard T. Jameson <p> <span class="h1"><strong>More to Explore</strong></span> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top" class="tiny"> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/319F7XTXH4L._AA115_.jpg" border="0"> Shop Westerns on DVD</td> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21bN4LsE45L._AA115_.jpg" border="0"> <i>3:10 to Yuma</i> Soundtrack</td> <td width="33%"> <img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11tR9LR0JuL.jpg" border="0"> Lions Gate DVDs</td></tr> </table> <p> <span class="h1"><strong>Stills from <i>3:10 to Yuma</i> </strong></span> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" width="100%" cellspacing="4"><p> <p> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td> <img border="1" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/02_300dpi.jpg"> <p> </td> <td> <img border="1" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/05_300dpi.jpg"> </td><p> <td><img border="1" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/16_300dpi.jpg"> </td><p></tr> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td><img border="1" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/13_300dpi.jpg"> </td><p> <td><img border="1" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/15_300dpi.jpg"> </td><p> <td><img border="1" src=" http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/08_300dpi.jpg"> </td> </tr> </table> <p> Reader Reviews If you're a casual moviegoer and aren't planning to watch both this movie and the original for the sake of historical comparisons or because you have an essay to write in your film class, the latest entry into the inveterate Western genre stands on its own merits, and is as pleasingly fast-paced as it is psychologically probing. 3:10 to Yuma is a character-driven performance that never forgets the joy of a good ole gun fight. The casting in the movie stands out almost immediately with a few surprises. Both Crowe and Bale give exquisitely complex performances. Crowe, who has a self-possessed charisma, affects a gentile attractiveness, that is best displayed in his interactions with Bale's enamoured wife played by Gretchen Mol. Bale is incredulous as a herder who is desperate to make one more go at his homestead before the railroads erase him from the face of the map. The dialogue between him and Mol about why he must escort Ben Wade to his death is heartfelt, believable, and lacks the heroic overtures we'd expect of more polished machismo. Even seeing a cameo by Luke Wilson would have been enough to spoil the picture had Wilson launched into tomfoolery, but even he remains stalwart and calmly cavalier in his role as a member of an opposing posse. Perhaps the most compelling performance for me was given by Ben Foster. My only previous remembrance of Foster was as the metal-faced punk in the Punisher, and later as the angel-winged superhero in the X-Men. However, that's where the similarities end. Foster does an extraordinary job of being diabolically evil. His blind allegiance to Ben Wade (Crowe) seems almost disturbing to Crowe himself. Foster's facial contortions and vocal inflections make his character a deadly combination of hair-pin trigger psychosis and raw madness. His will probably be the most overlooked, underrated performance of the year sadly. 3:10 to Yuma shows how the American cowboy epic is as much alive and interesting as the vampire movie is to horror fans. Both genres still have far-reaching influences on the cultures they affect.

3:10 to Yuma (Widescreen Edition) Available from Amazon Price: $14.99 Updated on 9-23-2008.

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