3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Another old Hollywood film is rebooted and remodeled to look fresh again. When 3:10 to Yuma was made in the late 1950s, America was fascinated by the Western. It was one of the most popular genres in movies and over fifty television shows were dedicated to the Western within a 5 year timespan. Hollywood was milking the genre so dry that producers started looking for the most convoluted plots and stories to keep some freshness in what had become a stale genre. Enter 3:10 to Yuma. A rancher has to help escort a criminal to Yuma to put him on a prison train. If he does so he gets enough money to save his ranch. The rancher and criminal bond and digress over their unlikely similarities and even save each other's life. The criminal takes sympathy in the rancher's story and in heroic fashion, he saves the rancher's life with his wife present (she comes in late to up the sentimental ante) and goes aboard the train willingly. The updated version has the rancher's 14 year old son making the surprise appearance. The final battle is absurd as townspeople try to kill the rancher to collect reward money. He dodges bullets and gets the criminal to agree to go for the sake of the money and a respectable self image to present to his son. If that's unlikely, when the rancher is finally killed by one of the criminal's gang members, the criminal kills his entire gang and then gets aboard the train afterwards. This really is pretty silly. Not only is it not believable, but it's not important. Hollywood exploits a simple story of poverty to ridiculous scenarios. The filmmaking makes everything look realistic by having the fighting and make up look so. Russel Crowe and Christian Bale get to enjoy exploits of a story that is superficial fun for an actor to do. Crowe has the most fun by playing the antagonistic criminal. Bale still proves he has little personality or emotional core to his performances. The grittiness of his look is the only thing that makes his desperation feel believable.