3:10 to Yuma Review

For ninety minutes this is a genuinely good western built on a simple proposition, a man who needs two hundred dollars escorting a man who can talk his way out of anything. Bale plays Dan Evans as small and stubborn and ashamed, which is harder than playing him heroic, and Crowe gives Ben Wade the easy charm of someone who has never once had to hurry. Ben Foster's Charlie Prince is the best thing in the picture, a wound up killer whose loyalty is the only sincere emotion on offer.

Phedon Papamichael shoots Arizona in dust and hard shadow without straining for grandeur. Then the last twenty minutes arrive and the film asks Wade to behave in ways the previous ninety minutes have carefully established he would not, killing his own gang to honour a bond the script has not earned. The shootout through the town is well staged and the emotional logic underneath it is a cheat. A strong film that talks itself into a bad ending.