While buying some Blu-Rays a few days ago, I was standing in an extremely long and slow line. I said to myself, “they really should open up another cash register”. Moments later, the man operating the register I was waiting for called someone up to run another. Why am I telling you this? Well, evidently anything I say will come true. I’ll use this to my advantage. My bank account will have a million dollars in it tomorrow morning and Hollywood will make more westerns. The first wish is an obvious one, but number two may require a little explanation. Of all the genres I could pick, why westerns? In the simplest way I can put it, Westerns are awesome and very few get made. I could count the number of big budget westerns released in the last few years on one hand. Those would be A Million Ways to Die in the West (It only kind of counts), Django Unchained (again, only kind of counts, but for different reasons), True Grit, and 3:10 to Yuma. The last is far and away my favorite out of not only those four, but the entire genre.
Being a fairly grounded movie, so much of the performance is solely on the shoulders of the cast. They do not disappoint. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale star as the outlaw Ben Wade and a rancher, Dan Evans. Their performances are amazing, especially when you compare it to some more classic westerns. I am honestly not a huge fan of most classic American westerns, as the acting is awful. Yes, that includes John Wayne, he is the single most overrated actor of all time. Feel free to yell at me in the comments for that. In classic the Spaghetti Westerns done by Sergio Leone, the acting is wonderful. My issue is with the tone of the movies. While I did enjoy them, I wasn’t exactly a fan of the almost surreal tone in play there. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Wade comes off as a smart man. Smarter than everyone in his gang and probably any of the other characters in this story. He draws in his free time and is well read. Essentially, he’s a gentleman. Except for that whole being a murderous stagecoach bandit of course. After getting captured, he is to be escorted to Contention where he will catch the titular train to Yuma, where he will stand trial and most certainly hang. Enter stage right Dan Evans. He is a man who hasn’t run into a whole lot of luck in life. Crippled as result of his time in the civil war, he owns a ranch in Arizona, but that isn’t exactly working well. A combination of drought, debts, and the impending arrival of the railroad has left Evans a desperate man. On a cattle drive with his sons, he encounters Wade robbing a stage coach, and the plot gets set in motion.
Mild spoilers here, nothing that really ruins the plot, but some people are a little uppity about that sort of thing, and I don’t want anyone to miss out on this.
I not going to give you a play by play of the plot, you can just watch the movie for that. What is important is that Wade ends up getting captured, and Evans needs to get him to the train, and he will get the money to save his ranch. Well, he has more motivation than just that. Wade offers him ten times the amount that the railroad company was offering him to let him go, but still insists on delivering him to the train. That’s the man Evans is, stubborn and he has something to prove. The dialogue between Wade and Evans in the final act is amazingly well written and delivered, really showing the tense relationship between these two characters. It really is nothing like anything I have seen since. The supporting cast is amazing as well, most notably Ben Foster as Charlie Prince, Wade’s right hand man. The character is an odd man, who seems completely infatuated with Wade and will stop at nothing to keep Wade from hanging. Foster is one of my favorite actors, and is completely underrated. Do yourself a favor and check him out in The Messenger. Peter Fonda plays a grizzled old Pinkerton detective, Byron McEllroy, hired by the railroad to hunt down Wade. He seems to have a history with him, as there is intensity in the dialogue between the two. Logan Lerman plays, Evans’ oldest son, William. He is a son who has almost no respect for his father, but when they encounter Wade, he almost seems to idolize him. As you can imagine, this doesn’t please Evans, as Wade is a self-admitted bad man. William’s relationship with his father is one of my favorite aspects of the film. All of these characters drive the plot forward to a more than satisfying.
This film has one of the best casts to ever grace the silver screen, with these characters being distinct and unique, without being stereotypes. The depth that is brought to play here is nearly unbelievable. From the acting and story, as well as from a technical standpoint (This movie was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best sound Mixing and Best Score), this movie is just amazing.
Film and Other Things 