JP "3:10 to Yuma"

In Delmer Daves’s 1957 film, 3:10 to Yuma, the audience watches the classic Western, following the exact template of any other film in the traditional Western genre. The film is a black-and-white romanticized film with long stretches of silence, fully capturing the true “stillness” of the American West. In 2007, 3:10 to Yuma was remade by James Mangold. Mangold's version is representative of a revisionist Western. The plot and storyline are basically untouched other than a few tweaks of character and the obvious ending. Mangold’s version is considered revisionist because it does not fit in the typical Western template. It is a film full of action and intimidating violence. The classic Western is “airbrushed” and can be displayed unrealistically. The revisionist film gives the Western a more aggressive image and shows the dominant attitude connected to the lawless land of the West and the heartless men it embodies.

In the 2007 re-make, Dan Evans is an injured retired soldier with a bad leg and bad luck with his ranch; with drought and debts that he can’t seem to meet. His eldest son, Will, looks at him as a disappointment and a pushover. Dan is desperate for money and jumps at the opportunity to take a bad, villainous cowboy, Ben Wade, to the 3:10 to Yuma train to send him to prison, despite of the high risk of death that goes along with this task. The risk that follows comes from the fact that Wade’s gang is determined to reclaim their leader, who has been captured by the small town. Wade is a western cowboy, who is deadly, ruthless, a complete amoral criminal but yet a very witty character. When Wade is alone, it seems that he understands the uncontrolled injustice of the West, however when with his gang, Wade plays the character of a villain. Dan’s son, Will, is infatuated by Ben Wade and follows his father to help bring him to the train. Throughout the film, Wade tries to break Dan down, giving him the opportunity to let him go only to benefit for himself and his family. In the end, Dan is shot dead by Wade’s gang at the train station. Wade ends up killing his own men for killing Dan. In reverence to Dan, who Wade has grown respect for, Wade still remains on the train and leaves watching Will knelt over his father’s hopeless body.

In comparison, the first film shares a similar plot. However Dan Evans is your typical alpha male cowboy of the West. He is not injured nor has a story of his own; he simply is a man with duties to and for the greater of the people around him, including his wife and their two boys. He takes on the task of escorting Ben Wade to the train so he can be put in prison for all the wrong he has cost the people of the West. Most of the film’s excitement is found within the scenes of Wade being in the town’s hotel. Wade continuously tries to tempt Dan of letting him go; making sarcastic and unnecessary remarks about Dan’s family and offers Dan money straight from himsele in turn of letting Wade free. In the end, Dan gets Wade onto the train safely and is able to wave to his wife, while explaining to Wade, “My job is finished once I get you there.”

Daves’s film concentrates more on the connection and relationship between the characters of Ben Wade and Dan Evans. It is the classic Western with the classic ending of the alpha male cowboy “saving the day” after facing multiple obstacles. While Mangold’s version, spends more time on his characters and their actions, and devotes more time to making the journey to the train station more death-defying; showing the reality of the West. The audience of Mangold's film would agree in saying that they are simply watching the true life of a Westerner rather than the “air-brushed” version of the West, depicted through the classic Westerns.