3:10 to Yuma (2007) Imprint Films - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (AU Import)

Even though the Western genre has lost favor with the moviegoing public in recent decades, it's easy to see why filmmakers continue to find it fertile ground for drama. Its grand, mythic themes appeal to a fundamental storytelling instinct, and there are so many to work with: good vs. evil, order vs. anarchy, nature vs. civilization, man vs. his own basest instincts, and the very birth of the American society as we know it. All these and more can be wrapped up in easily digestible morality tales set against vast expanses of beautiful scenery and filled with rip-roaring shoot-'em-up action. Rugged cowboys face off against charming outlaws, blazing a path through the wild, untamed frontier with six-shooters, rifles, and dynamite. What's not to love? And yet, by and large, modern audiences remain apathetic to the whole thing, convinced that Westerns were their granddaddy's genre and offer little of interest for them. Most of the same themes have since been transplanted to the science fiction realm for bigger box office results. But the filmmakers keep trying, and every few years a notable director will mount a revival of the format. The most successful, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven or the HBO series Deadwood, are typically revisionist, deconstructing the mythic archetypes and iconography of the Old West that had been burned into the collective cinematic consciousness for more than a century now.

The latest attempt to bring back the Western comes from director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) and has few such pretensions. His remake of 3:10 to Yuma, based on an Elmore Leonard short story last adapted to screen in 1957 with Glenn Ford and Val Heflin in the leads, is an old-fashioned two-fister, pitting an honest do-gooder against a dangerous outlaw in a battle of wills. In this go-round, Christian Bale is the struggling rancher Dan Evans, a simple man up to his eyes in debt and desperate to hold his family together. When the notorious train robber Ben Wade (Russell Crowe, oozing charisma) is finally captured, Dan volunteers to be part of the posse escorting him to the town of Contention, where the 3:10 train will cart him off to prison in Yuma for trial and hanging. For this, Dan will be paid the sum of $200 by the railroad company, a small fortune that should get him through another season of drought. The problem he faces is that Ben's gang, headed by trusted lieutenant Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), wants their leader back and are ready to gun down anyone who gets in their way.

Bale and Crowe deliver terrific performances, each man fully inhabiting their three-dimensional characters with complex moral values and complicated emotional lives. Joining them are Peter Fonda, unabashedly channeling John Wayne as a grizzled Pinkerton agent with a grudge against Wade, and Alan Tudyk (Serenity, Dodgeball) as a small-town doctor hopelessly out of his depth in this posse of rugged fighters. Tudyk has few lines but steals many scenes with his attempts to hide a wide-eyed innocence behind a façade of gruff bravado. Truly standing out even from this cast, however, is Ben Foster as Wade's flashy, amoral second-in-command, strutting through the picture with a cocky self-assurance and an air of invincibility. It's a flamboyant performance that could have gone over the top but is dialed back just enough to remain well modulated among the rest of the main players.

The movie has a fairly simple and straightforward story, charged by the cracking performances and peppered with exciting shootouts. It's an entertaining ride, held back from greatness by a few significant flaws. The first is that Wade's personality and behavior are inconsistent. He's meant to be a sensitive soul as well as seductively evil, but the script has him veering too radically between the extremes with the motivation for some of his actions at the end unconvincing. The big climax also veers into silly action movie territory with thousands of bullets fired in a confined space while the heroes dodge, duck, dip and dive, and rarely does anyone get hit. But beyond all that is one simple question that unravels the entire plot: Why don't they just shoot him and be done with it? Undoubtedly, the filmmakers have all sorts of elaborate justifications for why the characters want to keep Wade alive (Evans is too morally righteous to kill a man in cold blood, for example). But realistically, they don't hold up to scrutiny in such an environment, and one bullet could have spared everyone a lot of trouble. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
Courtesy of Imprint Films, James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma (2007) arrives on 4K Ultra HD as a collector's two-disc combo package. Housed inside a black keepcase, the triple-layered UHD100 disc sits on a center spindle while a Region B, BD50 copy is on the opposing panel containing all the same special features as the UHD disc. The keepcase comes inside a sturdy, side-sliding hardcase with lenticular cover art, which also includes six postcard-style art cards. At startup, the disc goes straight to a static menu screen of the cover art with the usual options along the bottom of the screen.

The western remake rides into the contentious town of Ultra HD with the same good-looking HEVC H.265 encode as 2017's Lionsgate release, offering a noticeable improvement over its HD counterpart but doesn't really hold up well against UHD titles. 

The overall video quality shows strong detailing for the most part, but it's not quite as sharp as it could have been had producers created a new remaster of the original elements. However, the HDR10 presentation enjoys a more brilliant and vivid contrast balance with crisp, intense specular highlights throughout. Unfortunately, there tends to be a tad of blooming and posterization from time to time, most noticeably in the hottest edges of light bouncing off faces. Noteworthy black levels supply good gradation and strong shadow details, providing the 2.40:1 image with some appreciable depth. A richly saturated palette better suits the hot climate, giving the cast a redder, sunburnt look that feels accurate and natural. Along with a thin layer of visible grain, outfitting the visuals with a film-like quality, this 4K transfer makes for a nice upgrade. (HDR10 Video Rating: 62/100)

The same DTS:X soundtrack is also ported over for this new UHD release, offering a more significant upgrade than the video over the old Blu-ray. My thoughts on this lossless 3D audio track remain the same, so here is what I originally wrote in 2017:

"The western favorite also arrives on schedule with a shiny but deadly DTS:X soundtrack [...]. Much of the action remains as before, across the entire soundstage with distinct clarity in the mid-range. However, with the extra breathing room, the loudest moments are a bit more detailed, as each gunfire comes a more precise resonance and snap while wood debris and fragments are heard shattering in every direction. The low-end also has more of a kick to it, providing a deeper, more responsive oomph to the gunshots and a rumbling roar to the train slowly rolling into town. Amid the mayhem, dialogue reproduction is clear and intelligible.

"It's in those same action sequences where listeners will also notice the object-based format's advantage over its lossless counterpart. While the screams of bystanders are heard in the distance, scrambling for cover, gunshots come from every direction and amazingly echo into the overheads, creating an immersive, realistic soundfield. The debris also feels as though raining down from above and around the listening area. The music fills the screen and nicely bleeds into the front heights, and the top rears are occasionally used for discrete ambient effects. It's not always consistent, but the track is an excellent complement to the video." (DTS:X Master Audio Audio Rating: 92/100)

For this UHD edition, the same set of supplements is ported over and shared between both discs. The only bonuses missing are the picture-in-picture "Inside Yuma" and the interactive text "Historical Timeline of the West."

• Audio Commentary with director James Mangold
• Destination: Yuma (HD, 21 min)
• From Sea to Shining Sea (HD, 20 min)
• Outlaws, Gangs, and Posses (HD, 13 min)
• 3:10 to Score (HD, 8 min)
• An Epic Explored (HD, 7 min)
• A Conversation with Elmore Leonard (HD, 6 min)
• The Guns of Yuma (HD, 6 min)
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 8 min)
• Trailer (HD)

Just shy of its 20th anniversary, James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma, a remake of Delmer Daves's underappreciated western classic, remains just as entertaining as ever, in large part thanks to the performances of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Courtesy of Imprint Films, the film rides into the Ultra HD town for a second time with the same strong but somewhat disappointing HDR10 presentation as the Lionsgate UHD release. Thankfully, an excellent DTS:X MA soundtrack comes to the rescue, tempting fans into an upgrade even though the same bonus collection is ported over. Overall, this UHD edition arrives as Recommended for those who didn't jump on the 2017 release. 

All disc reviews at High-Def Digest are completed using the best consumer HD home theater products currently on the market. More about the gear used for this review.

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