I went to see 3:10 to Yuma the other day with Louis, mostly due to the rave reviews it had been getting. Were they correct? Well... Yes and no.
3:10 to Yuma is an excellent film - of that, there's no doubt. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale do flawless jobs as the villain and hero of the movie. The cinematography is beautiful and actually makes Arizona look like a place you'd want to move to (don't). And as the Western genre goes, it's the finest example I've seen since the likes of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". So when someone goes on and on about the various bits that the movie excels at, you know that it means that there's something it doesn't quite excel at.
The ending of the film makes No Bloody Sense.
The story is Russell Crowe is a Bad, Bad ManTM. Christian Bale, is of course the Good ManTM. This is why we see his barn getting burnt down in the beginning of the film and not Mr. Crowe's. Bale lost a third of his leg in the service of his nation. Crowe stabs people to death with a fork. Bale sets a good example for his children by his honorable actions. Crowe slits the throats of Indians. You get the idea. Think Goofus and Galant, with a bit of the old ultra-violence thrown in for good measure.
Mr. Crowe has a gang that worships the ground he walks on. When Crowe gets captured, his gang rides to save them, with his right hand ambiguously-gay man, Charlie Prince at the helm. So for the last third of the the film, they chase Bale as he escorts Mr. Crowe to Yuma in order to put him on the 3:10 train to the prison. Lots of guns are fired and bullets fly about in such number you'd swear that their revolvers were automatic weapons.
After a long and torturous route, they make it to Yuma and at the last moment, to the train itself. Mr. Crowe's behavior gets a bit strange towards the end. He makes a few attempts at escaping near the middle of the film, but towards the end, he throws in with Bale and works at eluding his own gang. So he can go to prison.
Wait, what?
Yes, Mr. Crowe is veritably insane. And not the 'crazy bad guy' insane, but rather a 'your motivations as a character don't make any rational sense' insane. Upon reaching the train, Mr. Crowe boards it, only to see his gang catch up and shoot Bale silly. Enraged, he takes the lives of his own gang members with vehemence. And then he gets back onto the prison train.
The End.
It doesn't add up. Unless there's more coke waiting in that prison for Mr. Crowe than in all of Australia, he's committing one of the cardinal sins of cinema - acting contrary to the previously established motivations of his character.
Mr. Crowe is a Bad, Bad ManTM remember? He robs stage coaches with with the air of long practice. He kills men, seduces women, and threatens children, all while quoting the bible. Yet he boards the train and wordlessly hands his guns to the guard and rolls off into the metaphorical sunset.
If a character is going to have a conversion in a movie, it has to A.) be foreshadowed or done for reasons previously established and B.) be believable. This one is neither. And so I'd give this movie an 8/10, right up to the last few minutes, where it snatches "WTF??" from the jaws of victory and earns a solid 7/10.
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