Dan Evans (Christian Bale) has struggled with life ever since returning from the Civil War having lost a leg. His teenaged son (Logan Lerman) doesn't respect him, his wife (Gretchen Mol) fears that he's no longer up to the challenge of running a farm, and he's in danger of losing the farm to drought and failure to make payments. So he's more than ready to leap at the $50,000 reward he's offered for joining the posse that's taking Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to meet the 3:10 prison train to Yuma.
Wade is a notorious bandit, with dozens of train and stagecoach robberies and several murders to his credit, and the railroad desperately wants to see him hang. His gang, however, led by his chief lieutenant Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), is determined to rescue him before he's put on that train.
Even if you haven't seen the 1957 original version of this movie (I haven't), it is a Western, which means there isn't much doubt about where the story is going. Evans learns from Wade how to be a stronger man and reclaim control of his life; Wade manages to find the small shred of decency that lingers in his cold, black heart; evil is punished in the end.
What makes the movie worth watching, despite its utter predictability, is the strength of its cast. Crowe and Bale give the top-notch performances we've come to expect from them. I enjoyed Bale's performance more, if only because Evans is the more interesting character; Wade is limited to the one-dimensionality of most Western villains.
Even better than the leads, though, I enjoyed the array of fine supporting performances. Peter Fonda as the aging Pinkerton's agent, Alan Tudyk as the nervous town doctor, Dallas Roberts as the railroad man, Logan Lerman as the son who rediscovers respect for his father -- all are fine performances, with more subtlety and shading than the characters really deserve.
And then there's Ben Foster, whose Charlie Prince is one of the strangest and most fascinating performances of the year. Prince is somewhat prissy and a bit of a dandy (the buttons alone on his Sgt. Pepper jacket must have cost a fortune in the old west), and it's abundantly clear to all that his devotion to Wade is based on more than just loyalty; we even hear him called "Charlie Princess" at one point. It's a goofy mix of mincing and psychopathic violence that just barely stays inside the reality of this otherwise conventional western.
I wasn't convinced by the ending; there's a last-minute character transformation that comes entirely out of the blue and isn't remotely convincing. But that's just the last five minutes, and it wasn't enough of a problem to keep me from enjoying the movie, which is a solidly entertaining, albeit rarely surprising, piece of entertainment.
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