Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight. We’ve seen three movies from Elmore Leonard novels in just a couple of years. But before people were adapting his crime novels, they were adapting his westerns. A farmer desperate for money (Van Heflin) agrees to guard an outlaw (Glenn Ford) until he can be sent to authorities on the 3:10 train to Yuma. As the hours tick by in a hotel room, the outlaw begins to gain the upper hand psychologically with offers of money and threats of retaliation from his gang. While this movie is a western, what stands out are the well-crafted dialogue, well-rounded characters, and the performances of the two principals. 3:10 to Yuma is tense and engrossing.
3:10 to Yuma
***published September 3, 2000