journal features

movie review - 3:10 to Yuma

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2009.04.25

I ennoyed this miserably violent Western about a group of men who try to bring a notorious robber to justice. Included in this group is a local citizen who helped track the robber. It's somewhat more psychological than movies of this genre go, and what I found interesting was how the relationship between the two leads developed.

Aside from that, it's a straight-up formula piece with stage-coaches, riders on horses, rifles, whisky, the odd female presence, and psychopaths for hire. So many psychopaths. I will say, as god-awful as many of the characters are, you can believe their motivations and you get a sense of their relationships through natural dialog rather than exposition or clumsy spoon-feeding.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

In the wake of 9/11, we [in America] have made the decision as a society that we can never again create something in which we can take pride, for fear that someone will destroy it. Moreover, we must suppress any trace of individualism, lest someone have the desire to rise above the bland sameness that protects us. I have, alas, no idea how to recapture our courage.

—Anonymous post to boingboing.net, 2009