3.10 to Yuma

Russell Crowe is the bad guy in the black hat, with the fancy gun with a cross on its grip. Christian Bale is the dirt-poor family with the wife and the kids and the stump of one leg. He’s obviously the good guy. He needs to put Russell Crowe on the prison train the 3.10 to Yuma to collect a $200 bounty that will keep his farm going. More importantly it is about redemption. He wants to show his sons that there comes a point where a man can’t be bullied into doing something that he doesn’t need to do. It’s about being a man. And in any Western that means riding tall.

Russsell doesn’t want to go on the train. He’d prefer to tear up the countryside with his gang, hijacking coaches with strong boxes in them and get drunk at the saloon. This is his undoing. He’s taken in after having a liaison with the pretty girl behind the bar. He doesn’t seem too worried about it. His gang can outsmart and outgun any set of Pinkertons or appointed law officials that side of Hicksville Texas. He goes on a long circular trip with the aptly named Christian and they bond over their love of commonweal justice, Pinkerton injustice and good men who go bad and bad men who can make good. The only person that can stop Russell being put on the 3.10 is his psychopathic sidekick. His only loyalty is his boss. The world and everyone in it can be damned before he’d let anything happen to him. Unfortunately, for him, Russell had, after the temptation of Christian, found redemption in him.