Good flick, not great but good.
Good Western, loved the flick. While you may think of it as a classic western "road" picture it's much more than that. The centerpiece of the film actually revolves around Bales relationship with his 14 year old son who, despite his having been wounded in the Civil War, feels his father is a weak sniveling man. Crowe is delightfully understated in his role as "Ben Wade", the outlaw NOT the pipe maker. He woos women slyly, kills men ruthlessly and has no compunctions about killing anything that moves.
Peter Fonda does a nice turn as muderous Pinkerton Man. All in all I liked the movie although I must say that the ending had me scratchin' my head a bit. I give it a B-Plus.
Da Worfster
Spoilers! Ending Discsussion!
SPOILERS! ENDING DISCUSSION!!
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i loved the ending! From the moment where Wade gets the drop on Bale, and is about to kill him, and Bale reveals the truth about his wound to him it totally made the movie for me, and gave redemption to both characters. Bale wasn't doing it for money (primarily, though he cut a great deal in the process) but for his son to have something to hold on to about his dad.
for wade, the only true sacrifice was eliminating his entire crew. going to Yuma was no sacrifice, as he's escaped twice, he willingly got on that train, especially when bale's son said, 'you did it, you got him on that train' knowing that going there would give the money to bale's family AND the esteem and honor it would give to bale's son. wade will break out of yuma again, but he did the 'right' thing in getting on that train. And... his mini-prediction was right in the exchange...
bale: 'we're not friends'
wade: 'when the trains 5 mins away you'll think differently' (or something far more eloquent than that).
And Charlie Prince killed his friend, so wade responded the only way he knew how, killing them all. as charlie would have killed the son as well. and the son was right about wade in the end, he wasn't all bad.