(Warning: spoilers ahead)

“3:10 to Yuma” is an insufferably terrible film. Its sins are numerous, but the most glaring is characters that disregard logic and commonsense because if they didn’t there wouldn’t be a plot. In fact, if any the characters possessed a lick of sense “3:10 to Yuma” would be 10 minutes long.

Remarkably, movie critics chose to ignore this gaping chasm of a problem and turned “3:10 to Yuma” into a critical darling when it was released last year. Audiences, however, aren’t always so gullible and the film collected a paltry $50 million – barely breaking even. Audiences, it turns out, can sometimes be wiser than the critics.

Bruce Westbrook, movie critic for the Houston Chronicle, actually called “3:10 to Yuma” the best western since “Unforgiven.” Mr. Westbrook should be banned from reviewing movies for a year and be forced to watch all of the Police Academy movies in a row. Don’t be duped by the enormous marketing budget now touting the release of the DVD. “3:10 to Yuma” is bad movie making; achingly bad.

However, like all of our fantastically bad cinema selections, “3:10 to Yuma” is so god awful that there’s some delight to be had – especially watching Russell Crowe turn in his most overwrought, overacted performance yet as Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw with an intellectual heart of gold. Wade likes to make pencil sketches of birds and people before he goes off robbing and killing. The cad!

The plot is straight forward, but its execution is preposterous. Meet struggling rancher Dan Evans, played with seething intensity by Christian Bale (Bale needs to do a light romantic comedy). Evans is on the verge of bankruptcy and losing the faith of his wife and two sons.

So when Wade is captured after robbing a train company’s payroll coach (and murdering at least four men), Evans volunteers to be part of the posse that will escort Wade to the Yuma prison train. The movie plods along up until this point (most viewers will be hugely disappointed in the paint-by-numbers action scene that is the stagecoach robbery), but there’s hope for something more.

Be prepared for your hopes to be dashed.

The posse falls asleep around a campfire and Wade – using a fork pilfered from Evan’s ranch – proceeds to hack one of the posse members to death with it. This is the first instance where you slap and your head in disbelief. Why didn’t the posse tie Wade up? Isn’t he a ruthless mass murderer? If they couldn’t manage that no-brainer shouldn’t one of them have stayed up to guard him?

Another member of the posse – a bounty hunter – beats Wade senseless and – get this – the other posse members stop him. “That’s enough!” Huh? Didn’t Wade just stab one of them to death while they slept? Aren’t they escorting Wade to Yuma to be hanged? Why don’t they just shoot the bastard in the head and go home?

Not this posse. They continue on their merry way to Yuma – with Wade only wearing handcuffs (they tell him to shut-up so many times you wonder if they’ve ever heard of a gag). Wade then jumps the bounty hunter and throws him off a cliff to his death.

The rest of the posse manages to get the drop on Wade before he escapes – but do they kill him? Nope. Not even after the bastard has murdered two of them in cold blood. And neither do they tie and gag him. So, of course, Wade escapes again.

This time Wade is captured by railroad thugs guarding the Chinese workers as they build the transcontinental railway. One of the thugs recognizes Wade because Wade killed his brother. So the thugs torture Wade with the intention of killing him.

Guess what? Risking their lives, the posse, lead by Evans, rescues Wade. They shoot it out with the railroad thugs and another one of the posse is shot and killed. Can you believe this? This is the dumbest goddamn posse in the world. By this point you’re rolling your eyes so much that you have a headache.

The posse finally gets Wade to Contention – the town with the train to Yuma. There are only three posse members left, a railroad representative, Evans, and Evan’s son. They need to hide Wade somewhere until the train comes. What better place than the local hotel and saloon? Who would look there? And even better – its half a mile away from the station.

The railway man hires the local marshal and his men to help guard Wade, but when Wade’s gang of cutthroats ride into town to rescue him – well those cowardly lawmen flee (only to be shot down unarmed by Wade’s gang).

The railway man tells Evans its time to it give up and offers to pay him the money he needs save his ranch and get out of debt. He tells Evans that it’s over that they are outnumbered and outgunned. So does Evans quit to save his life and son’s and live to bail out his family?

Nah! Why give up after you’ve gotten seven men killed so far? Evans decides he’ll take Wade to the train station alone and get him on that blasted train if it is the last thing he does (although he probably was kicking himself for not hiding out at the train station in the first place).

Evans and Wade – clock ticking toward 3:10 p.m. – share a moment in the hotel room. Here’s the brilliant analysis of that scene by movie critic Roger Ebert: “Crowe and Bale play this dialogue so precisely that it never reveals itself for what it really is, a testing of mutual insight. One trial of a great actor is the ability to let dialog do its work invisibly…” Yeah, I’m a huge fan of invisible dialog.

So what happens? Inexplicably, Wade decides to help Evans deliver him to the train station. They’ll do it together (against Wade’s loyal gang of cutthroats)! Why Wade just doesn’t order his men not to shoot at them and then stroll down to the station is, well, stupid.

So they dodge, duck, run, and fight against Wade’s gang all the way to the train station. And if you were expecting action? Forget it. This is one of the worst gunfights in cinema history – with thousands of bullets flying and only bad guys being shot (because everyone knows they can’t aim).

Evans ends up dead – shot by Wade’s loyal lieutenant. He is, after all, trying to rescue his boss. Psycho killer Wade, distraught that his men have actually had the audacity to succeed in freeing him, guns them down in revenge for Evans’ murder.

Unbelievable? Completely.

Do yourself a favor and only rent “3:10 to Yuma” if you’re ready poke it with a stick. Otherwise rent “Unforgiven.” That’s a real western.

Labels: 3:10 to Yuma, Bad-Cinema, Movie Review

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