For a Few Dollars more is the second film in Sergio Leone's "Dollar Trilogy" which also consisted of A Fistful of Dollars and probably the most well known The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The film was released in 1965 and in this aspect is a latecomer in the traditional western genre.

In the mid sixties there was an in fluctuation of Italian made western films now known as the "Spaghetti Western" because of this fact. Sergio Leone is probably the most famous director of this movement and arguably the most important director in shaping and popularising the sub genre as a whole. The sub genre was created with a breaking of the rules and precedents set, at the time, by the traditional western film. These contrasts can be seen clearly in the comparison between Rio Bravo and For a Few Dollars More.

The themes for example are a lot different, Rio Bravo centres around a small town sheriff, Chance, who runs into trouble when the brother of a powerful and wealthy, yet unjust, citizen. The characters consist of an alcoholic deputy Dude, the hardy and stubborn sheriff Chance, a young gunslinger and a plucky lady. Dollars concerns itself with two bounty hunters, Monco and Col Mortimer, after the same prize. The prize being a vicious, murdering, rapist gang leader named El Indio and his crew of bandits.

There are two characters however that almost crossover from film to film. In Rio Bravo Chance's old timer friend Stumpy and in Dollars the character of "Old Prophet" draw parallels. Both are very old, know everything about the history if the town they live in and are constantly moaning about something. Both these characters are treated in a similar way in the two films as they are mainly there to lighten the mood and add a little comedy. This is more so in Rio Bravo as Stumpy has quite a lot of screen time, making jokes and meandering around in a daze whereas Old Prophet appears for only enough time to give Monco the information he needs.

The difference in the mood of the film and the difference between Bravos' optimism and Dollars' pessimism is easy to see throughout the whole of each of the films. In Rio Bravo we see a romance blossom between Wayne's leading man and Angie Dickinson's, tough faced, down on her luck lady which is a typical and transparent sub storyline. There is also the pain of Dude's drinking but the elated triumph as he overcomes his problems at the end of the film just as we knew he would.

This is the exact opposite within Dollars as at every turn there is aggression or anger. The only optimistic act throughout the whole film is the teaming up of Monco and Col. Mortimer and even then before this the two spy on each other and have an epic shootout, testing each others abilities. The filthy flashbacks of El Indio's murder and rape of a husband and wife constantly drag the film into oppression and even at the end of the film with El Indio's death we discover Mortimer has only been out for pure revenge.

Another light hearted edition to Rio Bravo is the use of diegetic music in the piece. Both Ricky Nelson, who plays Colorado, and Dean Martin, Dude, sing a few songs. At the end of the film Colorado and Dude sing along to the guitar whilst Chance and Stumpy sit around having a laugh and a joke. This is a very uplifting, feel good Hollywood scene that now would seem extremely clichéd.

Music also plays and extremely important role in Dollars however it is Morricone's epic and ingenious score that helps to drive the film along and highlights the mood and feel of the story with quite the opposite effect of Bravo's feel good sing song.

One of the biggest and most notable differences between the two films has to be both the style and techniques employed in each. Rio Bravo has a very steady pace to it with very standard shots and editing style. The film moves along at a relatively slow pace and gives a lot of time to each of the characters to develop. Even at the big shootout there is no particular fast paced cuts of movements. The film was shot on 35mm Technicolor which really brings out the colours of the piece and adds to the more cheery feel throughout.

In Dollars, Leone uses a myriad of camera movements, blocking and framing that is very heavily stylised and has become quite synonymous with him throughout cinematic history. The most noticeable are his contrasting extreme close ups and extreme wide shots.

Perspective plays a huge part in Dollars and Leone knows when to use the camera to maximum effect. The menace of El Indio's face on a wanted poster flicking between extreme close ups of Van Cleef with piercing gunshot sound effects on every cut. This is startlingly different from Rio Bravo which has only one real close up throughout the whole film and that is of Dude trying to role a cigarette. This aggressive stance taken by Leone is what creates the hostile landscape which the film is set.

Interestingly this film is also shot on 35mm Technicolor however its use seems very different. There isn't much in the way of vibrant colours as there is in Rio Bravo so the Technicolor brings out all of the browns and reds from the landscape and the blood.

Overall though part of the same genre the two films here are vastly different, Rio Bravo a classic Western text and Dollars a sub genre masterpiece which has become a classic Western text through its breaking of the rules and pushing of boundaries. Both films are excellent examples of a now diverse genre at the heart of American Cinema.

Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a struggling Arizona farmer desperately trying to hold onto his land. He's lost a lot already. Part of his leg was taken from him in The Civil War and he no longer has the respect of his oldest son William (Logan Lerman) or his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol). Dan is determined to hold onto his farm even though his water has been dammed up and his barn burned down by the local land baron. His chance to hold onto his land comes when the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) is captured in the nearby town of Bisbee. Ben Wade and his gang have robbed the Southern Pacific Railroad 20 times and their representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) offers $200 dollars to any man who will help him take Wade to a town two days ride away where a prison train will take Wade to Yuma. Dan is eager to sign up along with Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk) the sheriff's deputy (Kevin Durand) and bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda) who was the only survivor of Wade's most recent robbery and would rather just put a bullet in his brain rather than see him hang.

The journey is not going to be an easy one. Dan and the others are pursued by Wade's gang, led by the terrifyingly dangerous Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) Wade's right-hand man who seems to take it as a personal insult that Dan and the other have even dared to presume to think they're going to take Wade in to hang. And then Dan and the others have to take a detour through country infested with bloodthirsty Apache renegades. To make Dan's situation even worse, his son William has taken it into his head to come along against Dan's wishes as the 14 year old boy is plainly infatuated with Ben Wade's legend.

There are a lot of things that makes 3:10 TO YUMA work for me but I'll give you the main three: One is the story. It's a simple story, sure. But in Westerns it's the simple stories that work the best. The motivations of the characters is the grease that makes the engine of the story run smoothly and everybody in this movie has a good reason for where they are and why they do what they do. Second are the performances. The actors in this movie all look as if they're actually inhabiting the period they're supposed to be living in. The problem with a lot of recent Westerns I've seen is that they're miscast and the actors look as if they're playing dress up. Not here. And three is the location shooting. 3:10 TO YUMA was filmed in New Mexico and it looks absolutely terrific. It has the look of vintage 1950's/1960's Westerns.

The relationship between Dan Evans and Ben Wade is at the heart of this movie and both Christian Bale and Russell Crowe do splendid jobs of acting. Russell Crowe doesn't play Ben Wade as a foaming-at-the-mouth-mad-dog killer. Wade is surprisingly intelligent, charming, educated, artistic and talented. In fact, he's probably the smartest person in the movie and he has a scary insight into human nature. He can sit down with you for five minutes and tell you things about yourself you've kept shut up deep inside yourself for years. Dan Evans is nowhere near as smart or intelligent or talented. But he has a soul. A soul that intrigues Ben Wade and one he comes to respect. One of the best things about the movie is seeing how the relationship between the two men develops in ways I certainly didn't see coming.

Christian Bale is an actor that I think one day is going to achieve the status reserved for Brando and Olivier. He's just that good. I don't think I've ever seen him give a bad performance and I've followed his career since “Empire Of The Sun”. I was really interested in seeing how he would handle himself in a Western and I enjoyed his performance a lot. He takes to the Western like a duck takes to water and I certainly hope he does more of them. As for Russell Crowe, this isn't his first Western. He did a great job in Sam Raimi's “The Quick And The Dead' and here he makes his Ben Wade a totally absorbing and interesting character, one that we watch just to see what he'll do next because this is the type of guy who never does or says what you expect.

The supporting cast does a fine job in the roles and I really liked Peter Fonda here, considering that his dad Henry was in what I consider the finest Western ever made: Sergio Leone's “Once Upon A Time In The West”. Peter has a lot of fun playing a tough-as-horsehide bounty hunter here. Fans of the TV show “Firefly” will want to keep an eye out for Alan Tudyk who plays a horse doctor who discovers he's also a man of action.

The action scenes are thrilling and just what I expect from a Western. There's gunplay aplenty, especially during the last half hour of the movie where we have a number of plot twists that are thrown at us in such a way that I defy you not to be sitting on the edge of your seat. And I've said this about a number of recent movies but I'm going to say it again: much as I love CGI there's some movies you don't need it for and The Western is one of them. Sometimes it's a pleasure to go see a movie where it's Real People doing the stunts.

So should you see 3:10 TO YUMA? If you're as big a Western fan as me, Hell, yes. Even if you're not a Western fan and just want to see a movie with great action, solid acting and stunning cinematography, yes. If you're a fan of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, definitely. They give wonderfully strong, fully characterized performances here. 3:10 TO YUMA is one of those movies you don't want to wait for the DVD. Go see it now.