3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Bale and Crowe join the increasing number of non-Americans playing American cowboys.

The most puzzling aspect to me about 3:10 to Yuma is the reaction from fellow critics who seem to think that this is the second coming of the western, which they claim to be an otherwise floundering genre. The always-reliable Internet Movie Database begins its brief write-up on the film’s critical reaction with that very sentiment: “Just when it seemed as if the traditional Western had gone the way of the covered wagon, 3:10 to Yuma comes riding to the rescue with stars Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Or at least, so several critics suggest.” It proceeds to quote from said critics who reinforce this very point.

The chances are you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve read all the same reviews that I have: Like the rest of us, you are probably curious about whether or not the film is going to make it big at the box office(*) and if that is going to guarantee a surge in westerns in American cinema once again. And I suppose that this is a perfectly acceptable thing to wonder, when we consider the decided lack of westerns that we have seen in theaters over the years.

But excuse me while I scratch my head: Methinks the western is far from dead or dying. Over the past few years, there have been quite a number of westerns to appear on the big screen, ranging from fair to excellent in quality. Have we already forgotten about The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, or The Proposition, or Open Range, or Dust, or The Missing, or Once Upon a Time in Mexico (you could also make the case for Brokeback Mountain)? That’s saying nothing of unquestionable duds like American Outlaws and Texas Rangers. That’s also not counting recent television series like Deadwood, Firefly, Into the West, and Broken Trails, which have all developed loyal followings and bountiful acclaim. Just this year, besides this film, we’ve seen the release of Seraphim Falls, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, September Dawn, a samurai remake of the cult/spaghetti western Django, and two “instant classic” westerns—No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford—that have taken the Venice and Toronto film festivals by storm. It seems that there are just as many westerns playing right now in your local Megaplex as there are horror remakes or slickly-edited action films.

Yet the common assumption is that the western is dead, and that exciting new films like 3:10 to Yuma are required to make the genre live again. I suspect that the reason for this is that there was a time when over fifty percent of the films that Hollywood made were westerns; by the 1960s-70s, they were primarily Italian property with most American westerns dedicated to the “death” of the west in films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Wild Bunch, and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. The 80s and 90s had strong western directors in Clint Eastwood and Walter Hill churning out reliable pictures for the genre (Pale Rider, Geronimo: An American Legend), but the general attitude was that the American West had run its course. They still got produced on a fairly steady basis, but it was a waning genre compared to its golden days—even with Oscar wins for Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, which were considered exceptions to the rule.

I’m personally not convinced that the genre has floundered all that much. It is reduced in its scope, perhaps, but it remains as healthy and active as any number of genres. Remember: While celebrated directed like John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Anthony Mann indeed churched out successful westerns during in the 1930s-50s, most westerns were primarily B-movie affairs that appeared as matinee filler between more “prestigious” releases. For every John Wayne, there was a Rory Calhoun. Today, the B-grade theatrical releases have been replaced with direct-to-DVD and made-for-television films, and just a scan of the shelves at your local Blockbuster makes it absolutely clear that the low-budget western is still alive and well and certainly here to stay. I have no immediate intention of watching titles like Three Bad Men, Gallowwalker, or The Last Stand at Sabre River, but I take comfort in knowing that they’re as available to interested public as the dime-matinees were before the dawn of home entertainment systems.

          So: If 3:10 to Yuma is not the savior of the western as so many critics have speculated, where does that leave it? As a death-defyin’, high-falootin’, damn fine western that walks the walk and talks the talk. Director James Mangold, whose Johnny Cash-biopic Walk the Line was surely not without western flavor itself, can shoot horse riders galloping along the dusty prairies and the snowy mountains like the best of them, and the lengthy shootouts are the best I’ve seen since…well, since the last western I saw. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, a Kiwi and a Brit though they might be, are fine actors and up to their respective roles as a notorious outlaw and a simple farmer who get caught up in a whirlwind of western action together across rugged landscapes. Their performances are less iconic than John Wayne’s, whose popular personality generally defined his cowboy character, but that’s a minor reservation: These men are real actors after all, and they successfully lose themselves in the sweat and the dirt of the American frontier that the very personality of Wayne embodies.

            You may or may not have seen Delmer Daves’ original 3:10 to Yuma (1957), which was a vehicle for Glen Ford. I wouldn’t call Mangold’s film a remake; they’re both based on the same short story by Elmore Leonard, but they expand on different elements of the source material. Dave’s film was made a few years after the genre-defining High Noon, and thus emphasized the long wait for the train to Yuma that would take outlaw Ben Wade (played then by the reliable Ford) to prison. It dealt with the mounting apprehension felt by farmer Dan Evans (Van Helfin in the original) as he grew increasingly aware that a long gun-battle between he and Evan’s gang was going to stand in between him and his sacred duty to get his prisoner on that train, due to arrive at 3:10pm (so now you understand the title…you’re welcome). Daves built up the suspense so that it was practically unbearable, and the subsequent gunfight was an action-packed release that was kind of relieving even as it was exhilarating.

Mangold’s adaptation is more concerned with the journey before the train station, with Evans and a small posse leading Wade through dangerous frontier territory and forming a strange kind of bond in which the gunman and the farmer realize that they’re more or less both involved in these proceedings because they have been placed in impossible circumstances by the same, corrupt people. Evans (played here by Bale) is a Civil War vet who lost his leg and can barely pay his mortgage to greedy landowners; he now lacks the courage to really stand up for them even when they burn his barn and threaten his family. He’s escorting Wade (Crowe) because he is being paid to do so, and that payment could save his farm. Wade is the archetypal western outlaw, with his own trademark horse and gun; like all of his kind, we suspect that he secretly has a heart of gold and lives this kind of lifestyle specifically to be a thorn in the side of rich landowners who would exploit underdogs like Evans. By the time they get to the train station and find themselves cornered by Wade’s gang, the inevitable shootout is more of a confirmation than a release—it ties up all of the loose ends in these men’s developing relationship and allows the farmer to find his courage and the outlaw to test the limits of his evil. If we never doubt how the film is going to end (and I didn’t), we at least feel that it has never cheated with cheap, tacked-on sentiment; it develops the bond between the outlaw and the farmer with clever dialogue and excellent performances that always ring true, even as they play out as anticipated.

It is hard not to admire the sheer westerness of this film. It throws in just about every genre standard that we could possibly conceive, and seeing them tossed in for the hell of it makes the film all the more fun. We get (pull out your checklist with me) a stagecoach chase and robbery, an attack from renegade Apache, shootouts in a train tunnel, angry arguments between poor settlers and rich ranchers, a Civil War vet with suppressed post-traumatic stress syndrome, epic shots of beautiful women staring restlessly into the sunset, a deadly conflict in a saloon, a confrontation between the hero and the villain while seated with the hero’s family around the dinner table, the dramatic deputizing of ordinary townsfolk, a wise-cracking doctor who prefers a blunt object to a six-shooter, an exciting mountain chase from a reengage posse, fireside chats in which common men betray unreasonable amounts of frontier philosophy, a teenage boy’s adulation of his gunslinging hero (think Shane; in this case, the boy is complicatedly Evan’s son and the hero is Wade), a steam train that rolls into town while kicking up dirt, and gunplay in which the hero hits every person who he shoots at and villains who can’t shoot a lick. There’s even a horse that answers only to his master’s whistle, even if he’s half a mile away on the other side of the mountain. All this, and I’ve still failed to mention the rich supporting cast of western familiars, including Peter Fonda and Luce Rains. And a character named Jorgensen, which will make any admirer of John Ford smile from ear-to-ear.

Yes: It’s all utterly predictable. But it’s also utterly fun. At the time of this writing, the last film I reviewed was Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, which was predictable without being fun. In that film, people wander into the frame whose eminent, gory murders we immediately forecast, and then their deaths occur exactly as we think they will. The difference between 3:10 to Yuma and Halloween is in their delivery: Zombie sets us up with an interesting reinterpretation of a standard premise so that we expect more, and then he punishes us for such expectations by delivering a by-the-numbers slasher film; Mangold, on the other hand, gives us familiar images from the get-go, and then rewards us with a film that wholeheartedly embraces these routine functions with a fresh style that reminds us why they remain so exciting and durable.

The best thing, then, that I can say about 3:10 to Yuma is that is doesn’t bother to heed the prophecies of those who hail it as the western’s savior. It never takes itself so seriously, and would rather thrill us with all the ingredients necessary to reassure us that the classical western isn’t going anywhere. It is ultimately a pretty damn good western that recognizes all the great westerns that came before it and worships at their altars by paying respectful tribute, in the same way that Evan’s boy stands in awe of the gunslinger Wade and eventually contributes as best as he can to the action. We appreciate the gesture.

(*The film made an estimated $14.1 million on its first weekend, which was enough to rank it #1 for that week and is generally superb for a September release.)

Cast:
Russell Crowe: Ben Wade
Christian Bale: Dan Evans
Gretchen Mol: Alice Evans
Logan Lerman: Wade Evans
Ben Foster: Charlie Prince
Peter Fonda: Byron McElroy

A Lionsgate release. Directed by James Mangold. Written by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, and Derek Haas, from the short story by Elmore Leonard. Rated R, for violence and some language. Running time: 117 minutes. Original United States theatrical release date: September 7, 2007.