Movie review/rant 3:10 To Yuma [2007]

Now i am going to start by saying that its been a good long while since i have properly sat down and watched a movie especially one that goes for two hours and i heard an interesting thing from a friend the other day that i agreed with and that is the people of today live on 5minute videos and that they have lost their patience with film. Here is what i have to say.

3:10 to Yuma is cowboy western film starring Christian Bale [as Dan Evans] and Russell Crowe [as Ben Wade]. The character of Dan is having bad luck trying to make a normal life for himself, people are after him for his dept that has come about because of the dept collectors. Dan by chance runs into Ben who is a seasoned thief with a twisted sense of what is right and wrong and through another twist of fate they are paired up, as Dan must take Ben as prisoner and his to put him on the 3:10 train to Yuma.

Now i dont want to give any more away as this films intrigue lies not in the main story but in the character build up and the two main characters battle for good and evil. In this aspect the film delivers and what drove me to continue watching was every step that both main characters began to unveil themselves slowly throughout the film.

Moving onto the all important sound design. The sound element was very seamless even considering my ear for sound. I could definitely tell that there was some use of foley but it was of the highest standard and added so much grit and complexity to the sound scape. The dialogue was either well recorded or well mixed as i could barely tell what was onset and what was in a studio but i am pretty confident that both definitely happened at some point because i am going to assume that being on a location like the one that they were on would be amazingly noisy.  So thumbs up for sound!

Visually the film did exactly what it needed to. I wouldn't say that it looked mind blowing but i dont think it needed to and it might of taken to much away from the characters on screen. So in that aspect it was great it was odd to say but amazingly seamless which was perfect. Same can be said about the editing as it kept mostly wide and clean which again gives much credit to the cinematographer. It was edited like a spaghetti western and there were very few noticeable digital SFX.

All up I had a great time watching this film and it made me question a few things a decent film should but i am not going to give it a rank. All i am going to say is that this film is not a film for the action junkies or the hard core drama types. This film is a blend of both with every use of genre played to the overall advantage of the film. I did not feel like there was any scene in particular that was meaningless nor was there any film that really shone brightly. That is the kind of film it is.

As for people who feel that their attention span is dieing... its not it cant die but dam well it can dwindle and mine has but give yourself a push and a shove and you will be reminded that nothing can compete with two hours of a good build up.

Enjoy films!