3:10 to Yuma (2007) 3.5/5

A good movie but a little too cleanly puzzled together. The scripts cleanliness takes front stage to character motivations. This makes for some admittedly fun one liners and impressive scenes, but it feels very Hollywood by the end. Even the wrapping up feels like everyone says the right thing in unnatural ways to get it to the overall cool idea. This leaves Dallas Roberts, as the money man, to just be super agreeable at every step.

This also may be the cleanest R rated film. I am not advocating for going Bone Tomahawk, but it detracts how every death is so visually polite. Especially when quite a lot of characters are motivated by dealing and avoiding death out.

If that seems tough on the film, it is only because I really like certain parts. Ben Foster is fantastic and chews what he can with his dialogue. Peter Fonda really nailed his holyer-than-thou role. Bale is awesome and lets scenes breath around him. It is always fun to see Alan Tudyk, even if his character felt very cut down in editing here or in need of some actual doctoring scenes along the journey.

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