10 Greatest Westerns Of The 21st Century
4. 3:10 To Yuma
It’s unsurprising that James Mangold wanted to infuse Logan with Western influences, not when you consider how well he approached the genre with 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma.
The movie acts as a potent display of Christian Bale and Russell Crowe’s significant talent, with the former playing a down-and-out rancher desperately driven to hunting the latter, a notorious outlaw called Ben Wade. It also provided Ben Foster and Alan Tudyk with a chance to really stretch their character actor’s legs, as a stylish gunslinger and a perpetually befuddled doctor respectively.
What starts out as a fairly cut-and-dry Western soon evolves into an interesting character study, and an exploration of how far two men will go in order to secure their freedom and their livelihoods.
Although it might get overlooked in favour of flashier, more awards-friendly Westerns, 3:10 to Yuma is partly responsible for reviving the genre in the mid-2000s. Alongside No Country For Old Men, The Assassination of Jess James By The Coward Robert Ford, and There Will Be Blood, Mangold’s film proved that audiences in 2007 were just as eager to return to the Old West as they were in the 1950s.