3:10 to Yuma (2007) (nat)

I like to think I don't like westerns. I can't really name any westerns that I don't like, or even any that I know I've seen, but I just don't think I like them. This one, I liked. Christian Bale is Dan Evans, a rancher losing his land and the respect of his family. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade, an outlaw who especially likes to rob stagecoaches carrying train company money and he has a very loyal gang of bandits. That gang includes Charlie Prince (played by Ben Foster who was Angel in the last X-Men movie) who is maybe my favorite character in the whole movie. We also get Peter Fonda as Byron McElroy who is a bounty hunter incessantly after Wade, Gretchen Moll as Evans's wife Alice, and Luke Wilson in an itty bitty part. I wasn't bored at all: nothing was slow, nothing seemed completely unbelievable.

I was irked by one moment when someone "proves" he'll shoot Wade by shooting into the air. That doesn't prove you'll shoot a person. That proves you'll shoot the air. Joel said he'll never question whether I'd shoot because I said that to prove you'd shoot someone, you'd have to shoot them, in the foot maybe. Shooting the air, or a tree, or an animal, or even another person doesn't prove that you'd shoot the person you're threatening at all. But that's just me.

The basic plot is that Wade is captured, after 22 robberies, and has to be taken across the wilderness/desert so he can be put on the 3:10 train to Yuma where there is a jail. Lots of people shoot guns and lots of people get shot. That's about all I can say because there are some turns in the plot. I do recommend it, though.

But to conclude, I'll borrow some of Tracy's criteria. This movie is bad for (in no particular order and maybe not all-inclusive): children, Apache Indians, Chinese people, black people, women (whore-ish bartenders and good wives alike), ranchers, the railroad and the people who run it, cows, stagecoaches, sons, people in stagecoaches, bounty hunters, buildings, bartenders, mothers, law enforcement, law breakers, people with a vendetta, heroes, outlaws . . . . . . . . . .