3:10 To Yuma

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In 1967 A Fistful of Dollars was released and the western film genre changed significantly. Although the John Wayne western continued to be made, the fall of the mythological cowboy and the rise of the anti-hero gunslinger had begun, and each successive spaghetti western was just another nail in the coffin. Films like the Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid eventually buried the western at Boot Hill.

During the 50’s there were seventy westerns released, twenty-four in 1957 alone. I mention this because one of the first westerns released in ‘57 was 3:10 To Yuma, staring Glenn Ford as psychotic gunslinger, Ben Wade and Van Heflin as down-on- his-luck rancher, Dan Evans. Fifty years later the remake of 3:10 To Yuma has been released and the old fashion western is back in town. Over the past three decades there have been few exceptional westerns produced. Unforgiven, Dances With Wolves, Tombstone and possibly Open Range are standouts in the fading genre. 3:10 To Yuma deserves a place alongside these notables.

Russell Crowe as Ben Wade and Christian Bale as Dan Evens provide counterbalance roles as two tough men with opposing goals, locked in a head-on struggle. Evens has to have $200 to save his ranch, the love of his wife and the respect of his oldest son. After robbing a stage where he oversees the killing of the guards by his gang, Wade is captured by the sheriff and is to be transported to Contention City, the closest town with a rail connection to the federal prison in Yuma. The catch is that Wades gang of killers is returning to save him and there isn’t more than a handful of men brave enough or desperate enough take the $200 offered as payment to escort the outlaw to Contention. Dan Evens is both.

After reaching Contention City, Dan, his son William, and stage owner Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) are the only escorts left alive, the gang has just ridden into town, and the train is running late. As in all westerns the showdown between the good guy and the bad guy is reserved for the end and that detail isn’t changed here. Like the original, while traveling these two very different men have learned something about each other and one of them has changed. Unlike the original only one of these men will survive the final gunfight.