2/50: 3:10 To Yuma

For some reason I have never gotten into Western films. However, a little while ago I watched the series Deadwood and I have sort of become a little hooked on 'some' Westerns.

Even before that, however, I was very interested in seeing 3:10 To Yuma and had heard a lot of great things about it. But, I never got around to watching it - thus why it was added to my list.

Let me first start out by saying that I totally forgot that Christian Bale was in this film. I am not sure why, but I remembered Russell Crowe, but forgot Bale - so that was a pleasant surprise.

So, anyway, Crowe stars as Ben Wade a very well-known criminal that leads a pretty rugged gang. Bale is Dan Evans, a struggling farmer with a huge amount of debt.

Wade has eluded the law for many years, but manages to get himself caught after a recent heist. In order to stay ahead of Wade's gang they get together a small crew of their own, including Evans who makes a deal to help lead Wade to his train for a price and to get out of debt.

The rest of the film is the journey that the crew heads out on to get Wade on a train to take him to his trial. Which could sound rather boring, but it was nothing but.

Crowe's Wade was a lot less of the bad guy than I was expecting, he ended up being more of a psychological villain while in custody. The larger villain ends up being Wade's right hand man, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster). It's Prince that convinces the rest of Wade's gang to track him down and get him out of custody.

The film was great. I have had by issues with Crowe in the past, but I thought his performance was amazing here. As I said before, I wasn't expecting to see Bale, but he was outstanding as well. I have become a fan of Foster and it was great to see him play such a great villain.

There was great action and a lot of good dialogue - especially between Crowe and Bale. I figured this movie was going to be good, but it was even better than I thought it was going to be.

Grade: