September
2007
3:10 to Yuma or: The Forged Good Man1
SPOILERS ALERT
3:10 to Yuma (Mangold, 2007) could have been great. It could have been about a perverse desire of the Good Man to be the criminal he sought to bring justice to, the man who could take what he could and feel free of judgment or ties to a simple life. At one point, something in Dan Evans (Christian Bale) spoke to that desire. But that was not the plan for this film, and what Evans wanted was a little bit more sentimental than that: a chance to rewrite history, to be the hero he felt he needed to be. It still made for a really thought provoking, well made Western yet.
Mangold’s competent, somewhat low-key (despite the presence of an electrifying cast) remake of another film of the same name from the same short story by Elmore Leonard (admittedly, I haven’t seen the original or read the story to make any proper comparisons) told of a struggle by a family man to gain his rightful place in life. Dan Evans, limping on his one leg (though he tried his utmost to hide that fact, even when walking), expected himself to be able to protect and provide for his family on his own. He made a lot of compromises to keep himself out of trouble, while maintaining a bit of his manhood or dignity somehow. There were many chances where he could have just tipped over to one side or another to make the struggle less torturous. Yet, he persisted, insisting on doing things “right.” This involved bringing a notorious criminal, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to justice. Read the rest of this entry »