LogFAQs > #957656902

Poke: Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Im instantly sold. Russell is having the time of his life playing Ben. Nothing like playing a charismatic, charming cut-throat. Riveting from start to end, this was top tier for sure.

CoolCly: Many of these westerns live or die by how charismatic a few key performance are.
Russell Crowe *nails* it here as Ben Wade. He is very intimidating. The way he stares at people kind of terrifies me. My imagination of the things he's capable of outweigh anything they could actually show him doing. His charisma when he gets talking to someone is also incredible.

I find Christian Bale's character a bit too wooden though. The intent is for him to be rather cautious before making moves combined with having smoldering anger over the hand life has dealt him, which are both fine characteristics, but the result is that he feels like a piece of the background rather than the central character.

But overall, their chemistry together throughout the movie works and leads us to the final sequence, which I immensely enjoyed. Some brief looking around has a lot of people saying the ending of the movie is the worst part. Which I find perplexing. I enjoyed the whole movie, but it all felt in service of getting us to the point that Ben Wade was willing to play along with everything happening at the end. If you take that away, most of the movie feels pointless.

I should check out the original some day maybe if its on Westerns 2.

9.5/10

Karo: A rancher needing a quick buck tries to deliver a wanted outlaw to the titular train to Yuma at precisely ten after three. (or the title might be referring to the average high temperature in Yuma AZ which is in that ballpark)
Wade is a good character and he tends to steal the scenes and even draw empathy from the audience despite basically being one of the villains of the film.
It is a decent film with a focused plot and a clear goal for every character. I shouldn't need to explicitly state this about a movie but by god this project is rough.

KBM: I am not always a huge fan of Russell Crowe... but he is absolutely brilliant in this. His chemistry with Christian Bale here is superb as is underrated character actor Ben Foster as his scene-stealing second-in-command who will stop at nothing to get him out of the law's clutches. One of those movies on this list that just sucks you in and stays super engaging all the way through. Amazing soundtrack, too.

Johnbobb: I don't ever want to see Russell Crowe in an intimate setting again. I don't care that this was mid-2000s Crowe that was still popular and not digesting a toad, but it's still uncomfortable. Otherwise, solid picture. Decent acting (even if most of the cast never truly blends into their roles, which I suppose is inevitable to an extent when you've got big names like these leading men. James Mangold is good at what he does.

Inviso: Honestly? What holds this film back is just how slow and boring it is for most of its run. It just takes itself far too seriously, and I feel like they couldve a couple sequences out of the film without hindering the narrative being told. Christian Bales steadfast character is pretty standard, but doing a whole info-dump as to why hes behaving the way he is, all in the final portion of the movie, does very little for me. However, what keeps the movie from landing way down lower on the list is the fact that Russell Crowes Ben Wade CARRIES this film on his back. He is the wild west equivalent of a gentleman thief, and his Im not really a bad guy, but you should probably let me go all the same attitude makes a lot of the film work much better than it does. Hell, no one else wouldve given a fuck about what Christian Bale is sacrificing or trying to prove, but Ben Wade respects the hustle and goes along with his plans to the bitter end. THAT made for an interesting narrative, even if the rest of the movie dragged a bit too much.
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Bear Bro
The Empire of Silence