Nicholas Nicastro - VIZ. ARTS . . . Keeping the Western on Track

Keeping the Western on Track
(3:10 to Yuma, 9/17/07)
By Nicholas Nicastro

The final and complete death of the movie Western has been predicted for years. Like the embers of an old campfire, however, it refuses to die. The success of the HBO TV-series Deadwood certainly helped not only by showing media moguls that Westerns can deliver viewers and buzz, but by proving to filmmakers that it's still possible to do something edgy within the confines of the old genre. To be sure, James Mangold's sharp remake of the 1957 sagebrush thriller 3:10 to Yuma won't alone be enough to get the Western off its gurney. But it should keep its heartbeat going—at least until the release of the long-awaited Brad Pitt oater The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford later this year.
      Biblical parallels have long been a mainstay of the genre, and Yuma is no exception. The story is essentially "the last temptation" of the American Christ—the hardworking but luckless little guy who just might redeem the destiny of the nation if all the bandits and robber barons would just get out of his way. In this case the suffering redeemer is Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a dirt-poor rancher who lost a foot in the Civil War and is about to lose his land to debt and drought. His turn comes at last when gunslinger Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) is captured, and a posse is organized to deliver him to a train (the 3:10 to Yuma, Arizona) that will whisk him off to his execution. Evans opts to help escort Wade despite the distinct possibility that his gang is hanging around, waiting for a chance to rescue their boss.
      Much of Yuma is concerned with the violent consequences of this premise, as the posse transporting the fugitive itself becomes a fugitive from outlaws. The action is diverting enough—director Mangold, who is best known lately for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, gave equally good gunplay in the earlier, far superior Cop Land (1997). His use of the broad-shouldered Arizona landscape, where the earth itself seems laid open for dissection, provides a refreshing counterpoint to the virtually set-bound Deadwood.
      Christian (Batman Returns, The Machinist) Bale is making something of a specialty of playing rumpled, beaten-down characters like Evans. Fatigue is insinuated in every fiber of this guy's being, from the emaciated face to the tired limp to the squint of eyes yearning for the light at the end of his personal tunnel. If he's Jesus, then Crowe's Ben Wade is, of course, the devil. In a role that asks for little more than the raw presence he brings naturally, Crowe is slick and silky but never oily. The biggest problem with the character lies in the script: we never really understand why a cosmopolitan desperado like him would take such risks for a plodding prole like Evans.
      Along with the mesas and the cholla bushes, the oldest and driest presence in the film is that of old warhorse Peter Fonda. Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, is Ben Foster, the young actor whose best-known role is as Laurel Ambrose's artist boyfriend on the TV show Six Feet Under. As Wade's quick-shooting lieutenant, Charlie Prince, Foster struts around like he owns the movie—and emerges as perhaps the most hard-edged towhead to shoot up the desert since Gary Busey in Lethal Weapon.

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