3:10 to Yuma

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

Remake of the 1957 film, based on short story by Elmore Leonard.

Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is trying to keep his family intact and alive on a ranch close to Bisbee, Arizona at the same times as the Butterfield Couch Service, under the protection of Pinkerton's Agency, attempts to deliver money, and perhaps some people, safely between various towns.

Between them and the delivery stands the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang. And they stand rather successfully as they "œaccomplished" 21 takeovers and $400,000 in stolen goods.

Evans is being run out of his land. Arizona is in drought, but his land is subjected to water shortage because the landowner next to him, Holland (Lennie Loftin), shored the water and dried Evans' land out. Holland also demands that Evans pays his debts immediately, burns his barn and threatens to burn his house. The railroad is coming and the land is worth more without Evans than with him on it, says Holland.

Wade passes the ranch in distance on his way to get the money from the coach to Bisbee. The robbery brutally accomplished, he goes on to Bisbee and meets Evans and his boys who are looking for their lost herd of cattle. They will meet again in Bisbee when Ben is captured. For $200 Evans, pressed for money, takes on the job of delivering Wade to the prison train, the 3:10 to Yuma.

The journey begins with five men guarding the prisoner; it will go through Evans' ranch, mountains, night, railway surveyor's camp and end in Contention while waiting for the train. Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), second in command to Ben, and Ben's men will follow them everywhere as ruthlessly single minded in getting Ben back, as are the "good" men in getting paid for his delivery: wounded bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda) survivor of the attack on the coach, Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk), Tucker (Kevin Durand) and Butterfield official (Dallas Roberts).

So far, so good, this is what a good western is all about. The division between good and bad is invisible, and Evans, who came from the East after the Civil War, is the newcomer through whose eyes we see the West: brutality, greed, lack of moral or any other scruples, "success "defined by money only, few questions asked, all that is nicely shown. It all plays well until the moment when Evans, facing death, refuses offered money and life. Why would any man so desire to help killing one bad ma, so that other, equally bad men can live and steal in relative peace? There is no moral or actual difference between Wade, Butterfield, Pinkerton or Holland-they all hire killers, kill and steal as much as they can. Some in suits, others in boots. All western, and most of all American fortunes were build on innocent blood. Yet Evan's is determined to keep his word at any and all cost.
From that moment on, while still nicely shot, it becomes a fairy tale.

Russell Crowe is very good as a clear-eyed, illusion free outlaw, fast, immune to pity and true to his word when it suits him. When all this is taken under consideration, his last shooting outrage is absurd and the whole ending implausible. Not that it is Crowe's fault.

Bale is equally good as a disappointed veteran of Civil War, that brought him nothing but misery and lame leg, attempting at least to earn the respect of his hotheaded teenage son Will (Logan Lerman).

Peter Fonda is an excellent gun for hire with bloody past. Lennie Loftin, as Holland, serves as the prototype of all rich westerners, and is believable, as is Butterfield who after all, cares as little about people and as much about profit as anyone else.

Music is remarkable, it's the old, half forgotten reverberation of all what the West was supposed to be, played in the sound as sweetly as it did half a century ago. Adequately shot with some good editing, it is pleasing to see, occasionally engages the brain and comes off as one of the better films of this summer.

Neither Crowe, New Zealander, nor Bale, a Welshman, are real "Americans"and that gives the film additional realism for time portrayed.

Contention is now a ghost town. But neither Bisbee, nor Yuma are, and the road traveled between those two was on Apache land, hence the first disappointment I suffered was the realization that the town of film's Bisbee could never be anywhere near the real one, and the road between Contention and Bisbee would be far away from where it should be.

This would bother few, as few would also appreciate that because the film was shot in the winter, it avoids the usual pitfalls of showing barren land of today as that which used to be land bountiful in grass and trees before mining, overgrazing and forceful growth of mescal destroyed all vegetation. As this is one of the real parts of American history, few would even stop to think about it. The passes on Apache land have no tunnels; don'tgo looking for them. The best you could do is to pass through artificially blown arch in the Chiricahua Mountains.

The real Bisbee is, like many mining towns, is set in a narrow valley by railroad tracks.

It took 5,000 thousand US troops as well as 500 Apache scouts to even find Chiricahua Apache, which makes it is more than unlikely than one white man would kill three of them in the night on their own land. Chiricahua Apache do not wear feathers.

Directed by James Mangold, screenplay: Michael Brandt, Halsted Welles and Derek Haas, Music: Marco Beltrami, Camera: Phedon Papamichael.