If unrealized sexual tension is sexier than explicit sex scenes, 3:10 to Yuma is gayer than Brokeback Mountain. I fully expected Russell Crowe and Christian Bale to begin making out with abandon at several points in this movie (not that I wouldn’t have been fully in favor of such a plot development). Plenty of people get shot to shit in this movie, and it’s pretty much constant gun-slinging Western testosterone-drenched action, but frankly, the ending is as sappy, unrealistic and vomit-inducing as any RomCom. I don’t understand the scoffing at chick flicks, really – surround them with a scrim of gunfire and eruptions of fake blood, and they’d suddenly make perfectly respectable Westerns.
Which is not to say that 3:10 to Yuma isn’t an enjoyable film. It’s tension-filled and fast moving, and there’s Christian Bale there, as a struggling rancher whose cheekbones could cut jerky. Bale plays struggling rancher, Dan Evans, who’s in debt to the town’s rich guy, who is himself plagued by famous outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe), who holds up the rich guy’s stagecoaches full of money before they arrive safely. When Wade is captured, easily and unbelievably by staying around town a smidge too long to bag a bartender, Dan volunteers to help escort the dangerous prisoner to the nearest town, where the prison train to guess where will be coming through at guess when. The journey is long, and fraught, and Wade’s posse is supposedly hot on the trail to liberate their leader, although really they don’t catch up with Dan’s group until the end. The leader of this posse is Charlie Prince, played by Ben Foster, who previously played Claire’s bisexual spineless boyfriend, Russell, in Six Feet Under. He was disgusting as Russell, in a sniveling weasel way, and as Prince, he is equally disgusting in an irredeemable, soulless bad-ass way (by the way, if there is indeed honor among thieves, his character was cruelly wronged by Wade – Prince was super loyal and was only doing as he thought he should). I now admire Foster as an accomplished and interesting actor, and hope to see him in more films.
So, the movie has its plusses, but man, I have to say, the ending is just stupider than all get out. I don’t want to put a spoiler in here, but when I laugh out loud at the dramatic climax of a film, I feel it’s failed in its overall artistic mission.
