Today...
I caught 3:10 to Yuma...
or was it 12.10?...
My review...

Well..
Considering that I’d rather prefer other genre of movies than Western and that the only ones I have in my dvd collection are The man who shot Liberty Valance, Duel in the sun and High Noon…
…I can say that this is such a good film and I have to congratulate with all cast and crew for the astonishing job done.

Music and photography are superb and masterly matching every single moment…
Like two more characters, one following the other in a smooth but deeply present way…

There is a meticulous study regarding the costumes, they are so appropriate that every single actor seem to be born in those clothes.

The landscapes are breathtaking.

The interpretation of the genre given by the director seems to be perfect for a Western, but not iconographic, modern instead, although perfectly suitable the situations… As a cinema viewer I felt I was in Bisbee and about to jump on the train too…
I love the use that Mangold does of first shot and close up techniques, very helpful in portraying characters…

Editing is also great.

I have never seen the former 3:10 to Yuma, (I am going to find it as soon as I can)… but, in my opinion,  comparisons are always inappropriate… Too much time ever since and too many different cinematographic techniques have changed…

I do not know Ben Foster much but I can tell that he is great in his Wade’s right arm role.

An applause to William Evans as Dan Evan’s son for his felt interpretation.

Christian Bale is a very good actor and I like the way he performs as Dan Evans, with a hint of  melancholy, a lot of fear coming from desperation, but with a sort of crazy revenge on his crippled condition, either physical or psychological… Very good job!

Ben Wade is not the typical “bad guy” and only an excellent actor like Russell could have been chosen to interpret this multi-faced and complex character.
Ben is elegant and deadly dangerous at the same time, charming and violent like a storm, unpredictable, as sharp in speech as with the gun and powerful… he plays a long, exhausting, subtle, worming game with Dan… But Ben can wait, Ben can think, Ben has nothing to loose…
Ben has a past which surfaces sometimes amongst Russell’s glances… And those moments are just hinted but with such a strong power to open an abyss in one’s soul…

It is nonessential keeping to say that Russell can make us feeling what we are suppose to at that precise moment of a movie even without a line… Only with his eyes and the power of his vis comica… An actor, worthy being named such, has to be able of doing it and, of course, Russell is a master at it!!!

Yesterday, after work, I was too tired to go to the cinema, this morning I went to the 12.10 show by myself and tomorrow I will go again and take the whole family and some friends with me too… But we had better rush I suppose, unless we would miss the 3:10 to Yuma…

No worries… Ben is going to wait for us on the top of the mountain, he has got plenty of time… After escaping for the third time!?!… Sch sch...

By Sabry

London, September 15th 2007