A fierce, murdering lunatic named Charlie Prince (portrayed in a star-making performance by Ben Foster) runs into three men somewhere in the Arizona territory. He approaches them on his horse and asks them: "Are you a posse?" Then he takes out his gun, shoots them all down in a split-second and says to their corpses: "I hate posses."

This is the kind of witty dialogue that 3:10 to Yuma uses throughout its interesting, but uneven two hours. Here is a major Hollywood picture that tries to restore and revive the so-called dead American Western, and even though its intentions are true and admirable, it never really comes together as a great film.
In the movie, Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a smalltime rancher whose life is in turmoil because of enormous debts on his property and resentment of his two sons. He leads a quiet, peaceful life that suddenly changes one day when he crosses paths with a ruthless killer, Ben Wade (a mighty Russell Crowe), who just finished robbing a stagecoach with his gang. After a few twists and turns, Wade is stunned by the sheriff's department, eventually arrested and awaits transfer to a containment center so that he can catch a 3:10 pm train to Yuma for sentencing. Evans volunteers to help transport Wade across the dangerous Apache territory so that he could collect $200 and pay all his debts in order to save his ranch. A few other men come along for the ride, including a tough bounty hunter played by the legendary Peter Fonda. However, their journey becomes perilous and deadly as Wade tries to psych out everyone around him with his smooth talk and as his posse, lead by Prince (who sort of has a man-crush on his boss), races against time to save him.

The first hour of 3:10 to Yuma is absolutely perfect. The set up, the execution, the score are all top-notch. But then the movie does something that most films seem to follow. It turns Hollywood on us. It wants to be a typical crowd-pleaser, where the two main leads who would probably hate and kill each other in reality, actually earn each other's respect and turn into Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in a matter of seconds in front of our eyes. Wow, such a disappointment. 3:10 to Yuma contains a lot of violence and explosions, but there is no question in my mind that they are just for show. This film should have explored the inner psyche of the main two characters, so that we, as the audience, truly understand what drives them to be like that, but no. Whoever the audience feels like needs to die in the end does in fact meet his maker.

Filmmaker James Mangold is someone I have admired greatly in the past decade. His previous features, like the gangster flick Copland (1997), the psychological study Girl, Interrupted (1999), the serial killer thriller Identity (2003) and the Johnny Cash bio Walk the Line (2005) showed his enormous range and versatility as a major Hollywood talent. The fact that he never repeated himself in any film he ever made is evidence towards his mastery of the art. In 3:10 to Yuma, Mangold manages to induce great performances from Crowe and Bale, show the stunning landscape of the old American West, but hardly brings it home.