3:10 to Yuma

Back in September of last year Peter wrote about 3:10 to Yuma, the Christian Bale, Russel Crow western. Peter talked about how it wasn't a great "western" but was a good movie in a western setting.

Michal and I just watched Yuma last night and my reaction was a little harsher. I thought it sucked. Sure the acting was good, the camera work was good. the story was even good, but the one thing that ruined the movie for me were the "holes". Now, I understand that when watching a movie the audience is expected to resign themselves to a suspension of reality. We can enjoy Star Wars (the real ones) not because we think they really happened (like Star Trek), but because our imagination is engaged and reality is suspended. I did find myself drawn into the film, and I thought there were many good paths to explore (the Apache, the leg injury, Christian Bale's marksmanship), but these were all (minus the leg wound) left unexplored and unresolved. I kept thinking "why won't Bale pick-off that guy? He has a gun in his hand, he was a sharpshooter, that guys isn't that far away!" The only explanation I could come up with was that eventually, by the end of the movie you would see Bale unravel as the bad-ass you wanted him to be. He never did. Also, the Apache... super dangerous, really bad way to go, we shouldn't go that way... and there were three of them? The Apple Dumpling Gang could have taken care of three indians!

My statement to Michal after the movie was "why do people spend millions of dollars to make disappointing movies?" If you were gonna have Bale being chased through a town by 30 or 40 bad guys, don't tell me he's a sharpshooter and that he can "hit a jackrabbit at 100 yards". He missed that stone-wall-jackson /queer-eye-for-the-strait-guy / backwards-pistol-pulling-moron like a million times! There was even a bad-guy sharpshooter who he could have shot (through the scope), but never killed. Maybe if there was a directors cut with new footage and an alternate ending I would watch it again, but my final reaction to Yuma,

Three Thumbs Down!