DVD Revisited...3:10 to Yuma

He is an icon, the American cowboy. Ingrained into our national consciousness, the cowboy represents what we as a country believe us to be; self-sufficient, hard working and rebellious in nature. Where once he roamed all over the West and later Hollywood cinema, he has become an endangered icon. But he has not vanished, appearing every now and then on film to remind us why we hold him in such high regard, as Russell Crowe and Christian Bale did in 3:10 to Yuma, a remake of the 1957 film of the same name.

Bale plays Dan Evans, a down-on-his luck rancher earning a little extra money by escorting the captured desperado Ben Wade (Crowe) to a train that is to take him to prison. Both men contain the inherent macho bravado necessary to convey the demeanor necessary to survive a widely lawless era. Dan and Ben are two men seemingly at polar opposites of a morality spectrum. Bale and Crowe bring them to life over the odyssey to the train, revealing the shades of grey linking the plight of the two together.

To be sure, neither has any business with each other except for the task at hand. Dan is about to lose his ranch to a shady business man protected by the law. Ben operates outside the law; holding-up stage coaches because there is no other way to make an honest living in the barren landscape. Dan’s quest to do the right thing and prosper because of it grows harder by the minute as accomplice after accomplice drop by the wayside. The law does not see the benefit of reigning in the criminals and the money men look the other way; to another day and way of making a profit. Yet Dan holds on to his ideals, resigned in the knowledge that the right thing will not be done by the powers that be, it is now solely up to him. As Ben’s gang closes in to spring their leader, Dan begins to realize his options of survival grow dimmer by the minute.

Those minutes tick slowly throughout the film. Pocket watches and clocks are ever present mocking Dan of the time he has left and reminding us that though the images change, time has frozen. Crowe and Bale brought the 2007 3:10 to Yuma to life just as our economy was about to collapse. Honest, hard-working Americans about to lose their jobs through shady deals with banks while the corruption on Wall Street was coming to light. All the forces we put our trust in had seemingly failed us. This is why we should not let the iconic cowboy die. We must learn again to be self-sufficient and rebel against the status quo; reminded again the right thing was not done by the powers that be.