This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

3:10 to Yuma was a pretty fun film back when I saw the original and this remake does it justice. It’s a remake that keeps very close to the original with minimal changes but they work well. The lead’s wife gets less of a role here as his son gets to do more instead but the film makes the main villain and his right hand man a little more memorable. Ultimately it’s close but I would say this one does beat the original. There’s a whole lot to enjoy here.

The movie starts off with Dan in a rather rough place. He isn’t very well off as it is and then gets all his stuff stolen and burned due to the debts he has. It gets worse when he watches someone get robbed and does not help. Now he feels like his kids won’t respect him as much and so this leads him to join in with a posse to stop the legendary robber Ben. It’s actually not a job that sounds very hard. Ben has already been wrapped up by the proper authorities. Dan just needs to get him to a town where he will be taken in to jail. They just have to last a few days until the train pulls in. The only real complication is making sure that Ben doesn’t get into their heads. Most of the fighters are in the same boat as Dan. They have big debts and need money badly. Often times money can really mess with your morals and of course if there are less people around then each person’s cut of the money might be a little bigger eh?

Perhaps you can cut a deal with Ben rather than getting money from the company. Either way Ben may be the guy in handcuffs but Dan and the others are the ones who feel outnumbered. Another complication is that Ben’s crew is very loyal. Particularly his right hand man Charlie who will not rest until he has found Ben and freed him from these guys. Dan may have bitten off more than he can chew but at the same time he knows there is no turning back now. His honor and reputation is on the line right now.

Now there’s always a question of how far is too far with honor. Of course you need to do the right thing always and you can’t stop on that. The real question is if you should be risking your life for respect when it’s something you don’t actually need to do. In this case Dan absolutely could have stayed home and lived a decent life. Sure he would not have been known as a tough guy but he’d be around. I think if he was doing this because he really wanted to see justice done then that’s one thing but I’d say he should have stayed home after getting the money. It’s not like he’s trained as a police officer or anything like that.

That said, I agree with him on staying to see it through once he was there. It’s not like it went any better for the guys who left since they all got shot anyway. Particularly back in the wild west I never get why people just leave and assume the villain will keep their word. Seriously you’re just going to get shot right away I can guarantee it. So instead of putting your gun down you should at least go out blazing. Maybe you take one or two of them with you. Ideally you take out the villain leader that way. When you have a gun like this, you can always guarantee mutual destruction for at least one person.

Meanwhile Ben is a great villain and I would even say the best character in the film. He’s a villain through and through but at least he is one who has his own set of principles and an honor code. He’s not just going around blasting everyone randomly. He steals and generally does whatever he wants but he’s not going after kids or anyone who is not in his way. For example he was not going to go after Dan initially and he let him go. Then by the end he was actually helping out a whole lot in trying to get Dan to safety.

I also liked the fact that Ben was shown to be a great shot. He was probably the most skilled fighter in the whole movie and that really goes to show how he wasn’t trying to hurt the main characters. If he wanted them dead then they would absolutely be dead. The film is fairly light on gun fights but at the end his fight scene is really impressive. Definitely not someone that most of the characters could dream of taking on.

I’d say the only one who was close would be Charlie and to an extent you feel bad for him. He’s definitely a cruel villain and someone who has no mercy but he is loyal. He never waivered in his mission to help Ben out of the jam and really didn’t take any disrespect towards the guy. If Ben actually was as evil as the rest of the characters thought he was then these two would have been the perfect duo and really impossible to stop. So when they have to fight it’s one of the most emotional moments in the film to be sure.

Yeah this is definitely a very satisfying film all around. It’s also a movie where I think you can take a message about being careful what fights you jump into. You may not start a fight but after you jump in you suddenly find yourself as the last one standing. Everyone abandoned Dan by the end and of course there were legitimate reasons for doing so. The mission did start to seem impossible so you definitely get it and Dan had his own reasons for sticking around but it’s got to be tough when everyone is just gone like that.

Perhaps it’s better that way in this case though as most of the other “heroes” were extremely annoying. You had one guy who spent the whole film trying to pick a fight with Ben which made him easy to manipulate. It was another impressive moment for Ben with how he took him out. One of the older guys just got super greedy, etc. These were moments to show how Ben was able to easily turn everyone against each other but you feel like in part it’s because the characters were all just lousy people to start with.

Overall, 3:10 to Yuma is a pretty good movie. It gets all the positive elements of the wild west in there and has good pacing. It never ends up dragging on and the characters are very interesting. The verbal battles between the main character and villain are on point. Some characters definitely look pretty bad in how easily they are manipulated but for the main two they at least have a good respect for each other. The tension is constantly high with Dan knowing that he could die at any point and even Ben realizing that this won’t be an easy situation. Ben definitely does have the edge since even if he is captured he could escape. Definitely a must watch if you like the wild west genre.

Overall 7/10