Director: James Mangold
Writers: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas. Based on a short story by Elmore Leonard.

Principal Actors:
Russell Crowe.....Ben Wade, murderous sociopath with personal code of ethics
Christian Bale......Dan Evans, financially-insecure Union army veteran with disability
Logan Lerman......William Evans, Dan's unappreciative adolescent son
Ben Foster............Charlie Prince, Wade's psychopathic first lieutenant

Now that the Oscar hype for the 2007 films has died down, I'm working my way through the movies that got the most attention in the build-up to the Awards ceremony.

If there were an award for Most Over-rated, I'd say that 3:10 to Yuma would be the most deserving winner.

A remake of a 1957 Glenn Ford movie with the same title, 3:10 to Yuma is supposed to be a western in the mold of Unforgiven (1992). At least that's what the DVD jacket says. I haven't seen that Clint Eastwood movie so I can't say how apt the analogy is.

Taken on its own merits, Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma is trite and silly. What makes it watchable to the end is the star presence of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

The best line, "Even bad men love their mommas," is spoilt by the later revelation that Ben Wade was abandoned by his mother when he was eight-years-old. A precocious child, little Ben sat unattended for three days in a railroad station. during which time he read the Bible from cover to cover. Years later, grown-up, murderous Ben can quote scripture.

Wouldn't you love it if our present-day school system could produce eight-year-old readers of such proficiency? And to think it was probably the King James version that little Ben read. The film is set in the 1860s and the Revised English version wasn't published until 1881.

The triteness comes in its assortment of stock characters. Dan Evans is the down-on-his luck rancher being pushed off his land by drought and railroad capitalists despite his hard work and integrity. Having lost his foot by friendly fire in defending Washington D.C. from the Confederacy only adds to his depression.

Dan's wife, played by Gretchen Mol, is the usual blonde wife of the homesteading hero, upright and disapproving of her husband's decision to become involved with bad people. Wade is the outlaw with admirable qualities. In a traditional western Wade would be killed while performing some heroic gesture in defense of a "decent" person.

Dan's son, played by Logan Lerman, is the typical homesteader's son, dazzled by the freedom and machismo of the outlaw until he recognizes the worth of his own father. I think a boy growing up on the frontier wouldn't be as pretty as Lerman. In some shots he looks like a girl.

Wade's henchman Charlie Prince, the killer with a serpent stare, is predictably vicious. Regional prejudice, either the filmmaker's or that of one of the writers, puts him in a shirt that resembles a Confederate uniform tunic. In a similar vein, the railroad man Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) won't hire Evans until he knows that he fought for the North in the recent War Between the States.

If you find gun fights, explosions, and cattle stampedes (not one, but two) entertaining, you'll find plenty to like in this film. Ditto if you like to look at Russell Crowe.

If you prefer your movies with a coherent plot line and a discernible theme, you won't find them in 3:10 to Yuma.

One positive note: the film score is especially good. Marco Beltrami deserved his Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.