Screen Time

The initial TV ads for “3:10 to Yuma” didn’t appeal to me at all. Sure, I saw Christian Bale’s sharp mug and the reliable Russell Crowe staring back at me, yet I still wasn’t interested in the thing. Bale is one of my favorite actors and Crowe rarely turns in a drab performance, but I surely wasn’t going to be first in line to catch a lightly-hyped remake of a ’50s Western. The movie looked like something my granddad would enjoy but would leave me shifting in my seat. Then a few critics I respect starting tossing out words like “glorious,” “riveting” and “Oscar” when describing it. Then it hit number one at the box office on its first week out. Then I finally caught it on Saturday.

“3:10 to Yuma” is much, much more than the slow-burn exercise in genre those TV ads made it out to be. It’s an extremely compelling and well crafted tale loaded with powerful (not showy) performances, great action and soul to spare.

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Is the Western making a comeback?

I was surprised by the recent critical and box-office success of “3:10 To Yuma,” and who can forget 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain?“ Now the upcoming “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is getting pretty good reviews from the Toronto Film Festival.

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