(U-WIRE) WASHINGTON – If any Hollywood genre is dependent on iconography, it is the Western. Dusty streets in desert towns filled with bawdy women, rough-and-tumble men and shoot-outs at high noon. Director James Mangold borrows every classic Western image for his remake of “3:10 to Yuma,” and makes us hearken back nostalgically to the days when John Wayne and Gary Cooper graced the screen.
Dan Evans (Christian Bale), an Arizona rancher whose farm is crippled by drought, hears opportunity knock when local marshals capture the notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe). Wade needs to be escorted to the nearest railroad town (appropriately named Contention, Ariz.) so he can be put on the train to Yuma prison. For $200, Evans signs on to escort the prisoner and elude his gang of merciless killers.
But quickly, the other members of the posse are killed or desert, leaving Evans alone to ensure the prisoner is brought to justice. From here on out, it’s the classic, “High Noon”-esque, story of the American West: one just man taking on an army of villains.
Plot-wise, “Yuma” is generally unsurprising, and rarely deviates from the original. What is surprising is the film’s attitude compared to most recent Westerns. Movies like “Unforgiven” and “Tombstone” have tended to take a revisionist view towards the Old West; there were no good guys and bad guys, only self-interested gunslingers on both sides of the law. But “3:10 to Yuma” is a throwback to the heyday of classic Westerns, when good and bad were absolutes, and you could tell who was who by the color of their hat.
Dan Evans embodies the God-fearing Western rancher. Bale brings his characteristic intensity to the screen to portray the struggling family man trying to build a life in the harsh desert. He wears a white hat.
Crowe, perhaps now more suited to a villain’s role given last year’s hotel-trashing escapades, picks up the wicked outlaw persona as easily as he once did that of a Roman gladiator, a deranged mathematician and the dozen other period-piece roles he’s taken on. He retains his on-screen appeal, which makes his heartless character oddly charming and offers the slightest possibility of redemption. He wears a black hat.
The cast is rounded out with a collection of familiar Wild West figures: a rich railroad tycoon, a lusty bar maiden, a pious wife, a grizzled old prospector, bloodthirsty Indians, even a group of Chinese railroad workers.
It would be easy to call these figures lazy stereotypes, but I give director James Mangold a bit more credit. Previous outings like “Walk the Line” and “Girl, Interrupted “demonstrated that Mangold is no cinematic slouch. Instead, he’s created an homage to the days of John Ford and Howard Hawks. Mangold’s West is the way we want to remember it: a great American tradition.
To that end, “3:10 to Yuma” is non-stop action in true American style. The film opens with a spectacular stagecoach robbery, which sets the tone for two hours of constant gun fighting and explosions, culminating in (what else?) a quick-draw shootout.
If you can’t check your revisionist, PC mentality at the door, don’t bother with this one. Only passing attention is paid to the slaughter of the Native Americans or the abuse of minorities and immigrants. But fans of the classic Western will love “Yuma.” Bale and Crowe could easily forge careers out of gunslinging and riding horses; that is, if Crowe didn’t have to finish his quest to do a movie in every imaginable time period, and Bale didn’t have to return to protect Gotham City.