Super bad guy Ben Wade (aka Russell Crowe) shuffles into a dingy little western town with his posse, after robbing the shit out of a coach carrying a lot of cash. As most bad guys would do, the man decides to bed a whore to take the edge off, but it turns out to be at the expense of his freedom, as his “quickie” gets him nabbed by the good guys. Unfortunately for them, they have to get him to another town so that they can put him on a train to Yuma prison, where he’ll be hung. Rancher Christian Bale is one of the dudes with a gun who is responsible for getting him to that train station.

An above average Western featuring a handful of solid performances by a handful of solid actors, many of whom allow this film to elevate itself somewhat above its average storyline, which despite starting strong and ending on a pretty sweet gunfight climax, got a little redundant during its midsection, although never enough to take me out of the proceedings. In fact, for an average paced movie that lasts about two hours, I was surprised at how engaged I remained throughout almost the entire movie, and much of that credit might have to go to the film’s dual leads, Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, who continue their awesome characterizations with their respective parts here. Unlike most of his previous uber-confident roles, Bale displays a lot more vulnerability and insecurity as “the man with a family to protect” here, although his inner-strength does make a move to the forefront at some point. Crowe didn’t have to act so much in this movie, but he did jack up the “charm” factor, which in a film like this, generally goes a long way (did every woman he met wanna sleep with him?). I wasn’t crazy about his character though, it has to be said. It seemed like he was the world’s biggest badass, according to what everyone was saying in the movie, and people’s reactions to the very mention of his name, but day-to-day, the guy just didn’t act so badass and even came off a little sensitive in certain scenes (the man draws pictures of fuckin’ birds, yo).