Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

     This remake (originally released in 1957) stars Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Gritty and raw, the performances were electrifying. Bale plays a hard luck rancher who volunteers to escort gun slinging outlaw Ben Wade (played by Crowe) to Contention and place him in the hands of the authorities on the 3:10 prison train to Yuma. This is a man’s movie, with only a couple of women having speaking roles, and sidearms and rifles were a common accessory. There was plenty of gun play, including stage coach robberies, and skirmishes with Apaches, Pinkertons and law men. Though essentially a rustler, Russell Crowe played Wade as eloquent and ruthless– as likely to charm a Cobra and able to strike just as quickly if provoked. Bale’s character of Evans is a family man, struggling to keep his homestead viable in the face of drought and plans by the railroad to lay track through his land. Despite being on opposite sides of the law, Wade and Evans manage to find some common fabric between them. Ben Foster gives a strong performance as Wade’s second in command, with an equally beefy showing by Logan Lerman as Evan’s oldest son. An interesting cast member was Peter Fonda as a Pinkerton agent. In my research for 3:10 to Yuma I learned that director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted and Walk the Line) had been fascinated by the original version and aspired to do the remake for a long time. The credits included the screenwriters of the 1957 script as pieces of the first screenplay were reused verbatim. The source of 3:10 to Yuma is an old, dusty story by Elmore Leonard but this latest film version gives the Hollywood western a fresh cowboy attitude.

For more info and the perfect cowboy computer wallpapers, please visit the movie website:

http://www.310toyumathefilm.com/