The Dark Knight Rises

Audiences for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy fall into roughly three camps.  There are the devoted/rabid fans, the casual fan that likes blockbusters that aren't always vapid, and those that just can't get past Christian Bale's "Batman Voice."  After seeing The Dark Knight Rises, I'm reasonably sure that this film won't be changing anyone's mind about the series as a whole.  But what about this last chapter, specifically?


The Dark Knight Rises picks up eight years after the end of The Dark Knight.  Does that mean you need to watch The Dark Knight to understand what's going on here?  Well, it doesn't hurt and it gives you an excuse to see Heath Ledger's Joker again, but it's not necessary; it does help the beginning make more sense, though.  Gotham City, once a hellhole of crime and corruption, has now become a safe city, thanks to legislation passed after TDK.  Batman, once a staple in the city's grimy streets, has not been seen since and remains a suspect in a murder he did not commit.  But, other than that, things are just fine.  Instead of spending his evenings with thugs trying to kill him, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has opted to go the Howard Hughes route, avoiding human contact in his mansion and feeling sorry for himself.

He'd put the suit on, but he doesn't want to devalue it by removing the original packaging

Meanwhile, a series of seemingly unconnected crimes and shady business activities prove to be the work of a single mastermind: Bane (Tom Hardy).  Bane claims to be the heir of Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and the leader of the League of Shadows.  What does that mean to folks that haven't seen or don't remember Batman Begins?  Bane wants to destroy Gotham City and the dude has, like, ninjas on his side.  Or random street thugs.  Whatever.  Oh, and this time, it's personal --- Batman (more or less) killed Ra's, so Bane is gunning for the Bat.  But first, Bane wants Batman to suffer.  All the advantages Batman has had in the past --- his brains, his brawn, his skill, and his money --- are negated as Bane either removes them from the equation or one-ups Bats.  AND Bane holds the entire city hostage with a fusion bomb.

AND Bane insists on leading when they dance

Things look pretty bleak.  Then again, you have to fall before you can rise, I guess.

The recognizable cast in The Dark Knight Rises swells from past entries, but I generally liked the focus on the core plot and not the characters.  Once again, Christian Bale is Batman/Bruce Wayne.  I think Bale did another great job embodying the odd personality of Bruce Wayne; he conveys the mix of privilege and riches with determination and psychosis quite well.  I've never been crazy about his "Batman Voice," but I generally like his portrayal of the Bat.  Anne Hathaway has a sizable supporting role as Selina Kyle (NOT Catwoman) and she was far better than I had expected.  It's not that I doubted Hathaway's acting skills, but I didn't buy into her costume in the promotional footage.

As it turns out, I actually didn't mind the costume at all, in the context of the film, and I liked the quasi-femme fatale qualities of her character.  However, Batman is the greatest superhero because he has the greatest villains, and TDKR had a lot to live up to after Ledger's Oscar-winning performance in the last film.  I wouldn't say that Tom Hardy's Bane steps entirely out of that shadow, but he was pretty damn awesome.  The character design was very cool and Hardy managed to be both physically intimidating and a believable mastermind.  You can argue that Bane sounded like someone doing a Sean Connery impression through a broken vocoder --- and you would be correct --- but I enjoyed the dialogue I understood (roughly 60%) enough to not mind the bits I missed, kind of like my attitude toward Brad Pitt's accent in Snatch.

Sadly, Bane never says "Man talk, baby" in his Robo-Connery voice

Joseph Gordon-Levitt shows up to play a beat cop that sees value in the moral space between Batman and Commissioner Gordon.  Marion Cotillard also has a small, key part.  While neither of these actors stole their scenes, their parts were clearly there to fill thematic purposes, and they played them well.  As for how necessary their characters were...well, if you're going to include them and not make the story as a whole suffer, then this is the way to do it.  Gary Oldman returns as Commissioner Gordon and I thought this was his best work with the character yet.  Morgan Freeman also returned, although in a greatly diminished capacity.  Similarly, Michael Caine once again played Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, but he isn't in very much of the film at all.  There are a few other noteworthy bit parts --- Matthew Modine is a useless cop, Liam Neeson briefly reprises Ra's Al Ghul, the guy whose face was digitally removed in The Social Network (Josh Pence) played a young Ra's, and Cillian Murphy returns because...well, just because.

However, the acting in a superhero movie is really secondary to the spectacle.  As much as I enjoyed Tom Hardy here --- and I did, quite a lot --- this is a Big Movie, made for IMAX, and it shows.  The largely practical effects in The Dark Knight Rises were excellent.  The opening scene with the plane being destroyed and the shots of the bridges being blown were my personal favorite visual moments (aside from Bane tossing aside the broken Batman mask), and that ignores the vastly improved Bat-cycle and Bat-plane scenes.

Where do you park that thing?

The action scenes are solid and large in scope, but this series has never been about intricate fight scenes as much as it has been about Batman being a scary bastard.  But with Bane outdoing Batman, does that really work this time?

"I'm not internationally know, but I'm known to rock the microphone"

Director Christopher Nolan did a great job bringing this trilogy to a close.  It ties in with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but has an identity of its own.  The camerawork is good, the big scenes feel huuuge, and this epic sequel managed to hold onto that epic feeling throughout.  As a comic nerd, I appreciated the choices made with a lot of the characters and I was impressed with how many classic Batman ideas were included in this story without it feeling disjointed or suffering from the (lower case "b") bane of superhero sequels: too many villains.  More than anything else, Nolan crafted a tale that is as realistic as a Batman movie can be and actually concludes logical character arcs.  Is this as good as the excellent (but flawed) The Dark Knight?  Maybe not quite, but it's damn close.

Here's the biggest problem with the film, though: there isn't a lot of Batman in this Batman movie.  This is a great story about Bruce Wayne, the man inside the suit, but it is not the quintessential Batman movie.  That's fine by me and was obviously a conscious choice by the filmmakers, but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.  Yes, Bruce Wayne overcomes personal and physical obstacles in his quest for victory, but there are not nearly as many moments here where the Batman seems truly bad-ass.  You can also make a valid argument that time was an enemy in this film, specifically its liberal use.  The time gap between TDK and TDKR is fine, for the most part, but it raises some interesting questions.  For starters, just how low was Alfred willing to see Wayne sink before telling him about that letter?  The best detective in the city, Gordon, never tried to identify Batman?  Even a rookie could (and did) figure that out --- just look for the guy who can afford all those wonderful toys.

"This Batmobile piece reads 'Property of Wayne Enterprises.'  Hmm..."

And the convenience of the fusion bomb's countdown nearly matching Wayne's recovery period was a bit much.  And how did a penniless Bruce Wayne get from Hell's Toilet, Middleeasternistan, to the US, much less inside the isolated Gotham?  And if removing his mask puts Bane in unbearable agony, how does he manage to maintain such a perfectly smooth shaved head?

A: he has a mohawk ponytail underneath the center strap

So, no, it's not perfect.  Hell, it's not even that fun to watch; it is 2:44 of gritty angst.  It is, however, a fantastic end to a trilogy.   It could have been better if we saw Batman outsmart Bane instead of just punching him in the face, but the scope was so epic that I didn't mind the second Death Star that Batman solved his problems by punching harder.  I will go so far as to say that The Dark Knight Rises is the single best movie to date that features Batman.  I may like The Dark Knight a little better, but the flaws are fewer and less important in this film.  This is also one of the few trilogy endings that actually delivered; I would put this above Return of the Jedi, but below Return of the King and Slap Shot 3: The Junior League. 

To put it another way, The Dark Knight Rises might not have a lot of Batman in it, but it gets to the core of what makes Batman great; Batman is the single greatest superhero for many reasons, but his legacy, influence, and punk rock DIY attitude toward justice shine through here.  In the hands of just about any other filmmakers, the last few scenes of this movie might have come across as a cheap teaser for the next sequel.  Instead, Nolan & Co. closed the Bruce Wayne chapter appropriately, even if the story still goes on.  This unexpectedly became less about Bruce Wayne as Batman and more about Batman as an abstract idea.  I wasn't expecting that, and I found that approach very satisfying from a film and comic nerd perspective.

And if you really just can't get past Bale's "Batman Voice," enjoy this clip from Attack of the Show.  I think it captures the ridiculousness of The Voice rather well.

The Machinist

Some movies are more well-known than they are seen.  For years, whenever any article was published that spoke about how Christian Bale won the lead role in Christopher Nolan's Batman series, The Machinist was pointed to as an indication of just how far Bale would go for a role he cared about.  Thanks to an extremely limited theatrical release, though, few people actually watched the movie.  So, how does it stand up?

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) hasn't slept in a year.  He still works every day, working heavy machinery, but his insomnia has obviously taken a toll.  Aside from an emaciated appearance, Trevor seems to have memory lapses; his apartment is covered in Post-It notes to help him remember.  He doesn't seem to have any real friends, except for a hooker, Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that worries about his weight, and Maria (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), the waitress at the all-night airport cafe that he visits daily.  One day, this abrasive new guy, Ivan (John Sharian), switches shifts and ends up working the same shift as Trevor at work.  While helping a co-worker (Michael Ironside) with a machine, Trevor gets distracted by Ivan gesturing on the other side of the room --- I would be distracted by Ivan, too, since he has a big toe where his thumb should be.  Gross.  Anyway, Trevor's carelessness causes an accident that ends up costing his co-worker an arm.  Trevor tries to place a little blame on Ivan, but nobody's ever heard of him; there is no Ivan at his workplace.  Huh.  That's weird.  It's not all bad for Trevor, though; he starts to see Maria outside of work, even taking her and her son to the carnival.  He and Stevie even talk about making a commitment and getting her a legitimate job.  Every time something seems to be going right for Trevor, though, Ivan pops up.  Stevie has a picture of him in her apartment, showing Ivan and one of Trevor's co-workers out fishing.  What is going on here?  Is this a big conspiracy to mess with Trevor's sleep-deprived mind?  And what is with the game of Hangman on Trevor's fridge that only seems to progress when he's not paying attention?

As I mentioned earlier, the one thing that everyone comments on when discussing The Machinist is Christian Bale's weight loss.  And with good reason.

Bale dropped about 60 pounds to reach a weight of 120, and his appearance is downright disturbing.  He looks gaunt with his clothes on, but the scenes where he is shirtless are just very uncomfortable to watch.  At one point in the film, you get to see a photo of a full-bodied Bale, and the difference between what he was then and is now astonishes.  Bale's performance is more than just a physical transformation, though.  He did a great job portraying the confused and exhausted Reznik.  What impressed me most, though, were the moments when he let his character's temper snap.  I found his anger here more alarming than anything I saw from him in American Psycho.  The rest of the cast is not nearly as good, though.  Jennifer Jason Leigh was okay, as was Michael Ironside.  The bit actors were mostly fine, too, including Anna Massey and Larry Gilliard, Jr.  I was left particularly unimpressed by John Sherian's performance as Ivan.  I understand that his character is not supposed to be likable, but whenever he was on screen, I could feel my distaste for this movie grow.  It's not entirely his fault, since not every actor can pull off a character that is smug, vulgar, and intentionally repulsive, but he didn't do a good job. 

By the way, what was with his toe-thumb?  Yes, I get that the character lost a thumb in a machine accident and had his toe transplanted onto his hand.  I'm asking what the point of that was.  The only purpose I can see in that is that it gives the screenwriter an opportunity to make a few discomforting comments about sexual foreplay.  Frankly, that is not nearly enough of a reason to satisfy me.

The Machinist has one powerful performance, several serviceable ones, and one supporting role that irritated me.  What does that say about director Brad Anderson?  Not as much as you might think, actually.  I generally liked his direction, but it wasn't flawless.  I think he handled Trevor's increasing paranoia well.  The story has a mystery at its core, and you can solve it if you pay attention to some details in the film (or, if you're movie smart, like me), but the clues are subtle and decently clever.  Obviously, Anderson and Bale worked well together, but no other character felt like it had much depth aside from Trevor.  Again, I'm going to point to John Sherian's performance as an indicator that Anderson didn't direct his actors all that well.  Nevertheless, he captured dread and paranoia quite well, and I was pleased with how he set up the film's mystery, so it is a job well done, overall.

I do have one major concern with this movie.  It's the game of Hangman.  The word in Trevor's game has six letters, and at one point, we see that he has "blank-I-L-blank-E-R."  Trevor guesses "Miller," meaning Michael Ironside's character; that doesn't work because there are two L's in "Miller," and it would have come up when the other L did.  Everybody knows how Hangman works, if only because it follows some of the same rules that Wheel of Fortune does.  The fact that Trevor is unaware of this is more than a little odd.  It gets worse near the end of the film.  SPOILER ALERT: When Trevor realizes that his Hangman word is "Killer," everything falls into place in the film, like little puzzle pieces.  And yet, that also ignores the fact that "Killer" also has two L's and, by the rules of Hangman, is clearly not the right word.  Unless, of course, Trevor is playing the game wrong, which is equally dumb.  Man, that pissed me off.

The Machinist is definitely worth a viewing for Bale's performance and his appearance.  The direction is pretty good and this is a nice little movie about paranoia.  It's not great, though.  The lack of a strong supporting cast and memorable dialogue seriously limit the power of this film, and that Hangman problem shows lazy screenwriting.  More than anything, this is a movie that is all about Christian Bale.  If that sounds up your alley, you should give it a chance.

Terminator Salvation

I love the Terminator series.  Until I experienced the rapture that comes with repeated viewings of Road House and Purple Rain, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was my most viewed movie as a teenager.  I can even point out the single bullet that, had it not been dropped, would have ended the movie twenty minutes earlier.  While the first two Terminator movies are obviously classics, I'm even okay with the far inferior Terminator 3: Wanton Destruction of Property.  It's not great, but it could have been much, much worse.  As the fourth movie in the franchise, Terminator Salvation sits in an unenviable spot where it wants to recapture the fans that were turned off by the last film while relaunching the series by setting it in the Terminator future.  That is a tough trick to pull off.

How successful is this film?  Well, on paper it might work.  Christian Bale signed up to play the main role of John Connor and the supporting cast was partially filled out with Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, and Helena Bonham Carter.  Not bad, right?  I liked the notion of taking the series into the post-apocalyptic future instead of retreading the "to save the future, John Connor must live" plot from the last three films.  Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger's sagging man boobs should have no reason to show up, since he was busy governing California at the time of filming.  I love me some vintage Ahnuld, but the man stopped making good movies in 1994.  Oh, and this movie doesn't feature time travel, which automatically makes it slightly less ridiculous than any of the other films.  All in all, this movie was theoretically promising.

And then it starts to fall apart when you take a closer look.  Counting Bale, the pivotal character of John Connor has been played by four different actors in four movies and one TV show.  That implies that there is no true vision for the character, so despite him being a recurring role his character's presence does not indicate any particular level of quality.  The director ended up being McG, which is the most obnoxious Hollywood name in recent memory.  Oh, and he committed the cinematic sins of directing the Charlie's Angels movies.  The rest of the supporting cast consists of Bryce Dallas Howard (I don't care if she's prettier than her dad, she's not very talented!), Moon Bloodgood (whose acting is nowhere near as awesome as her name), Common (who still hasn't convinced me that he can act), and Michael Ironside (whose name should have belonged to a general or linebacker, not a B-movie actor).  And this movie was rated PG-13, not R, like the rest of the franchise.  Add all that to the fact that the script went through several rewrites, and this thing starts to sound like it will utterly suck.

As with so many things, the truth lies somewhere in-between.  In the year 2018, the future is a great big pile of crap.  The sentient computer program, Skynet, has instigated a nuclear holocaust, leaving mankind on the brink of extinction.  The remaining humans are trying just to eke out survival or they are active in the human resistance.  John Connor (Christian Bale) is a member of the resistance movement; despite having some knowledge of the future from his mother and his time-traveling Terminator friends from previous movies, he is not one of the leaders of the movement.  But, apparently, he is the voice of "Human Resistance Radio," the presumably made-up-by-me title to his occasional radio pep talks to the remainders of humanity.  The resistance has just had two major breakthroughs:

1. They have discovered Skynet's "kill list" of humans most in need of being murdered...John is #2, behind Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin)---John's father, who hasn't yet aged into Michael Biehn, gone back in time or slept with Linda Hamilton in The Terminator.
2. They have discovered a radio frequency that disables Skynet's killer robots.  Oh, and Skynet also is planning to kill the leaders of the resistance in one week.  How nice of Skynet to squeeze the leaders of humanity in on that day...I thought they'd be booked!  

Anyway, the resistance leaders are planning to nuke Skynet's central base after using the new robot-disabling technology to turn off their defenses.  The only problem with that is that Skynet has been capturing humans to experiment on them in that same base.  Casualties of war happen every day, but not on John Connor's watch!  He heads to the base to break out the humans before Skynet gets bombed.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Marcus (Sam Worthington), a man that is being executed in 2003.  The next thing he (or we) know, he awakes in 2018 with absolutely no idea what is going on.  He meets the young Kyle Reese and his fellow survivor, the nine year-old Star (Jadagrace Berry), and they get kidnapped by Skynet machines and taken to the Skynet central base for unknown reasons.  Marcus feels obligated to break his only friends out of the base, so he finds and teams up with a Human Resistance member, Blair (Moon Bloodgood), and is taken to the Resistance base.  Once there, the Resistance discovers a startling secret about Marcus that explains the fifteen-year gap in his memory.  With that reveal, many questions arise:

• Is Marcus one of a kind, or is he a sign of things to come?
• Can Marcus be trusted?
• Can John Connor find Kyle Reese before the Resistance nukes Skynet's base?
• Will Skynet win by being nuked and killing John's soon-to-be father and wiping John out of existence?
• Will Skynet win by drawing John into their main base and killing him before the tide in the man vs. machine battle has turned in favor of man?
• Will Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, or Thomas Dekker (the other three actors who have played John Connor) show up and really confuse things for viewers?

Let's start with the good things first.  I will admit that, while watching this movie, I was entertained.  It is nowhere near as intelligent a film as the rest of the series, but it has its own charms.  I liked Anton Yelchin's performance; it was reminiscent of Michael Biehn's work in The Terminator, but not indebted to it.  The movie looked good, too.  It can be difficult to capture the dirtiness of a post-nuclear world, but I thought the sets looked great.  I thought the design work for the various Skynet machines was imaginative and pretty cool.  There were a lot of cool mini-tributes to the first couple movies sprinkled throughout; the best was definitely the inclusion of the Guns 'n' Roses song from Terminator 2.  There was a lot of action, too, enough to keep you from thinking about the movie's plot or logic.

That is where things start to sour for this film.  Despite avoiding some time travel problems by setting this in the future, including a young Kyle Reese has the same effect as sending a Terminator back in time to kill John or Sarah Connor; if the Terminators succeed, then the entire time line is disrupted and, I assume, everyone wakes up in a delicious swimming pool of vanilla pudding.  Or, we blink out of existence; until the time stream is totally disrupted and I can be proved wrong, I'm sticking with my theory.  That headache aside, there are a lot of little things that don't make sense in this movie.  How can so many machines that are specifically designed to kill people have such awful aim?  How is Marcus able to swim, considering his presumed body weight?  Why don't Terminators just crush John Connor's throat or punch through his face?  Whenever they get their robotic mitts on him, they just throw him across the room.  Why would sentient machines have a radio frequency for an Achilles' Heel?  When the final plan is revealed, why is it so ridiculously convoluted?  Seriously, when I heard the plan explained, I thought I was listening to Cobra Commander, or possibly underpants gnomes.  And yet, we are supposed to believe that a brilliant and devious supercomputer came up with this?  I am insulted by the filmmakers (probably fair) assessment of the average American's intelligence.  And what was the deal with Skynet targeting Kyle Reese?  In the first Terminator, the father of John Connor was unknown by Skynet, but here he is their number one acquisition priority.  Did John, the only living person who knows the identity of his father, blab his daddy's name?  I'll just mildly state that I doubt it.  But let's say that, yes, John Connor spilled the beans...when Skynet captures Kyle, why don't they just squish him into meat jelly?  It couldn't hurt their evil plans, right?

Despite all that stupidity, though, this isn't a bad movie.  Yes, McG is a pretty bad director in terms of cinematography, storytelling, and working with actors, but at least the movie never drags.  Most of the actors turn in uninspired performances, but not necessarily bad...although Christian Bale was uncharacteristically one-dimensional.  And Sam Worthington still has the range of a box of Triscuits.  If you look at this as a continuation/reboot of the ultra-successful Terminator franchise, this was definitely a disappointment.  On its own, though, the movie is a fun, dumb little flick.  As much as the logic-loving part of my mind might disagree, I give this movie

***EDITED ON 9/27/10 at 14:20 PM***
An excellent comment from nobulljive has forced me to amend my rating.  Yes, it is incredibly stupid for Skynet to have designed a base that conforms to human proportions.  With so many uniquely shaped pieces of machinery, there is absolutely no reason for a base for robots, by robots, to be designed like any modern-day processing plant.  And it is even stupider for the interface for the central Skynet computer to have screens or speakers for Helena Bonham Carter to speak through.  The central computer in Skynet should just have ports for any machine to link up and communicate through. 

Man, I can't believe I didn't think of that; I am now equally upset with myself and this movie.  These logical flaws in the story, on their own, wouldn't bother me too much.  I can forgive action/sci-fi movies for some stupidity.  On top of all the other issues I had with Salvation's plot, though, I cannot in good conscience recommend this film.

Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn is the film that is loosely based on Dieter Dengler's experiences as a prisoner of war in Laos in 1966.  Dengler published a book back in 1983, Escape From Laos, that probably tells basically the same story, but this film is primarily inspired by the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly.  Werner Herzog directed both Rescue Dawn and Little Dieter... and found Dengler's story so compelling that he found two very different ways to tell it.

The plot is a simple one.  Dengler (Christian Bale) is an American pilot in the mid-1960s that has a bombing mission over Laos.  He gets shot down, which was especially bad in Laos because the US wasn't supposed to be there at all; that essentially means that the US government would not be using diplomacy to get the POWs in Laos home, because the US didn't officially have troops there.  Yes, I know...it sucks to be Dieter Dengler (and not just because of the name).  Dengler is captured by men affiliated with Pathet Lao, which is approximately the Laotian version of the Viet Cong in Vietnam.  When he was initially captured, Dengler was given the chance to denounce the United States by signing a pre-written letter in exchange for leniency; Dengler refused to denounce his country and was sent to a prison camp.  The camp is guarded by a relative handful of men (maybe fifteen or so) and there are six POWs, including Dengler.  Dengler instigates an escape plan, but that's really the small picture.  Even if the POWs escape, they have a dense jungle filled with disease, enemies, and precious little nutrition surrounding them on all sides.  How are they supposed to be rescued from there?

For a movie about POWs, this movie spends relatively little time in the prison camp.  A decent-sized chunk of the story takes place there, to be sure, but I would estimate that less than half of the film is set in the camp.  That really puts a lot of the focus on Christian Bale to carry this picture, which he does, often with extended periods with minimal dialogue.  I don't consider Bale an explosive or overwhelmingly great actor; I think he approaches his roles methodically and tries to pay attention to the details.  In this regard, he does a great job.  His mannerisms, from the way he behaves in the jungle at the beginning and end of the film to the way he eats his worms and grubs in the prison camp, feel authentic.  He certainly looks like someone who spent time as a POW; he lost over 50 pounds to play this part.

Bale wasn't the only actor to lose weight for this movie; Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies lost 40 and 33 pounds, respectively.  Both actors turn in good performances here.  Zahn is primarily known as a comedic actor, but he does a good job as the POW that is the least depressed and deluded when Dengler arrives.  As such, he becomes Dengler's partner in crime and shares a lot of screen time with Christian Bale.  Personally, I like Zahn best when he is stretching himself (Happy, Texas and Out of Sight are good examples of Zahn's talent for layered comedic roles), and playing an ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance is a refreshing change of pace from his typical buddy comedy fare.  Davies has a lot of fun playing the delusional member of the group, insisting that diplomacy was the only way back to the US and he would rather ruin an escape attempt than risk his diplomatic rescue.  Davies' character is interesting because it gives an unexpected source of conflict that produces some unusual results.  The rest of the supporting cast is solid, but not particularly noteworthy.  The Pathet Lao appeared to be mostly evil, which may be an oversimplification, but was probably a valid point of view coming from a POW.

Despite the lengthy periods with limited dialogue, Herzog does a good job keeping the suspense and danger in place.  This could be a film that tries to convey the exhaustion that Dengler experienced, but Herzog wisely chose to compress time and focus on immediate threats whenever possible.  The cinematography is good and there are no truly weird moments, which makes this the most viewer-friendly film Herzog has directed to date.  There has been some dispute over how true this "true story" is; the family of Davies' character has set up a website that attacks the film's accuracy in general and the portrayal of Jeremy Davies' character in particular.  While I have no doubt that Herzog changed some aspects of the story to make a more suitable narrative, I find myself pretty indifferent to complaints of inaccuracy.  Herzog claims the sole writing credit for the movie (despite the fact that Dengler wrote his own book about his experiences), which tells me right away that he chose to change some plot elements for dramatic purposes.  As long as Dengler didn't get a writing credit and the movie is not promoted as a biopic, that's okay by me.  My main problem with the film has to do with the plot; by spending so much time out of the prison camp, the immediacy of the escape is diluted.  That is a necessary problem, given the story, but the escape wasn't as cathartic as it should have been.

This is a move that is difficult to break down into individual components because it really is a cumulative effect.  The ways that each character reacts to their stressors might be unexpected at times, but it is logical, which is difficult for a director to pull off.  The physical work the actors put into their roles combines with an unusually restrained directorial effort from Herzog to make the best POW war movie since The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Let's be honest, Westerns don't appeal to everyone.  The action is usually bunched together in the beginning (sometimes) and ending (always) of the film.  John Wayne made about two hundred Westerns, and he always plays himself...and sometimes, he isn't even convincing in that.  The golden age of Westerns ended in the 1960s and many have aged poorly.  With the improved special effects in modern movies, the Western action scenes often looks tame by comparison.

3:10 to Yuma, however, doesn't suffer from any of these problems.  The action is sprinkled throughout the entire film, so there is rarely more than ten minutes that pass without someone being attacked or killed.  Since the action is spread so evenly throughout the film, this is probably the most consistently action-packed Western I have ever seen.  No one in the cast attempts to channel John Wayne; this movie follows the post-Western attitude of Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch by having a movie with bad men as main characters and no shining hero in the bunch.  There isn't any blatant racism in the script and women are treated in a manner more in line with today's tastes; Gretchen Mol quietly controls her home and Vinessa Shaw...well, okay, she's treated as an object.  But that's a pretty good percentage for a Western!  The gunplay is fast and frequent throughout the movie, and they even figured out a way to include an explosion.

While Russell Crowe's character, Ben Wade, is what you will remember from this movie, the main character is actually Dan Evans (Christian Bale).  Evans is an ordinary guy that can't get a break.  He lost his foot in the Civil War, his Arizona farm needs water and is the middle of a drought (really?  In Arizona?), he is hopelessly in debt and will lose his farm within weeks, he has a young boy that needs expensive medicine, and his older son has no respect for a father that just lets it all happen.  On the bright side, he's married to Gretchen Mol.  Evans finally gets a break when he helps a posse capture the infamous robber/murderer Ben Wade.  Catching a criminal is just the first step in bringing him to justice, though, especially in the Old West.  Since the towns are few and far between, with only a few having courthouses or prisons, that means that Wade has to be escorted to prison, or in this case, to a train that will take him to prison.  Evans joins the posse for a hefty fee.  The trip is several days long, but the real danger begins when Wade's loyal sociopathic right hand man, Charlie (Ben Foster), learns that Wade has been captured.  Ultimately, all that stands between Wade and freedom is Dan Evans.  And all that stands between Evans and death is his determination to bring in Ben Wade.

If this film was just about Christian Bale's character, it would be a depressing psychological piece on a stubborn man that has reached his breaking point.  It might be good, but not in the hands of director James Mangold.  Mangold is the kind of director that does a pretty good job with a movie's overall story, but he doesn't have a noticeable impact on his actors; good actors deliver good performances, while bad actors do not.  Luckily, this story has Russell Crowe's character to balance the moroseness of Bale.  Crowe turns in a performance that is both charming and filled with a sense of imminent danger.  For most of the movie, Crowe does not shoot a gun, but there is always the promise of violence when he is in a scene.  While the plot throws a lot of supporting characters into the mix, the story basically boils down to these two men.  As evil as Ben Wade clearly is, both the audience and Dan Evans have a hard time not warming to him.  For his part, Wade enjoys the company of Evans, but keeps reminding Evans that he can and will kill him, just the same.  For most of the film, the audience (and Ben Wade) assume that Evans is going through all this trouble in the hopes of a big payday, but it is really a matter of pride for a man with nothing else to be proud of.

There are a lot of supporting characters in this movie.  Most function as cannon fodder, but a few stick out.  Peter Fonda plays a Pinkerton agent that has a long history of chasing Ben Wade.  The character is more of a hired goon than a hero, but Fonda gives him depth.  Most of the other actors and characters just serve their purpose.  Alan Tudyk is servicable as a jumpy veterinarian that is out of his element.  Logan Lerman is a little obnoxious as the son of Dan Evans, but his character spends half of the film with a my-dad-is-SO-lame attitude, so it's probably not his fault.  Luke Wilson makes a cameo as a guy with bad teeth.  Dallas Roberts is fine as a cowardly railroad man and Kevin Durand is good as the same jerk he plays in every movie.  Ben Foster, though, turns in a great performance as Wade's loyal second-in-command.  Foster usually chooses supporting roles that require him to be over the top, but they're always fun to watch.  Here, he gets to have another weird accent, some odd mannerisms, and a frequently used fast draw.  The reason he is good here is that he is able to balance a clear affection for Wade with a complete disregard for the lives of everyone else.  When done right, sociopaths can be fun to watch.

This is a remake of a 1957 classic of the same name.  The original stays truer to Elmore Leonard's original short story, but this update did a good job.  The story's core is still Wade and Evans spending time together, waiting for the titular train to arrive.  The primary difference is that this movie spreads the action (and their interaction) out over a greater physical distance.  That was a smart move, because so many remakes fail when they try to imitate what made the original great.  This film manages to stand on its own, even if it does so by making Crowe's and Foster's characters, the meanest in the movie, into the most fun to watch.