comment #1

Ogami Itto says ...

That interpretation makes sense to me.

comment #2

swordandpen says ...

But Wade at a certain point decides to let Dan put him on the train, after Dan tells him about why he lost his leg. Plus, the movie kept cutting to Crowe's regretful facial expression after Dan is shot.

Wade didn't change completely, as it was suggested he would probably escape from Yuma, but clearly something weighed on his conscience at the end.

What was intended and how it played are two different things.

comment #3

Adonis says ...

I have to be honest: I don't see the confusion here.

It's pretty clear that Wade is not a reformed man. I mean, there is no vow to be a better person, neither actual nor implied, and clearly he plans to escape the train.

But for that day, indeed, maybe really only that hour, he found a "score" he wanted to take, namely to vindicate the honest man in front of him. He found himself enjoying things... and as we see in how he gets caught, he's a man who likes to indulge his soulful curiousity.

Anyway, whether he truly is angry at his gang for being so chaotic and destructive in the town, or is simply enraged at having his daydream come to a screaching halt, doesn't really matter.

Either way his gunning down of his gang shows an impulsive man who takes poetic license in the world. He kills good guys; and he kills bad guys. He draws poetically, he talks poetically, and occaisionally he decides to live poetically.

And sometimes not... Anyway, Wade's the anti-William Money, as there's nothing "realistic" about the character. He's a romantic figure who oozes romance. You can't get too hung up on his motivations.

comment #4

lesterg says ...

Vince Foster?

comment #5

nycfilmguy28 says ...

Christina Bale? ;)

comment #6

nemo says ...

Check out James Wolcott's blog at Vanity Fair for a funny take on the whole Wells/Mangold/Finke affair (though no one but Finke is mentioned by name). It's immortality of a sort:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/2007/09/not-to-namedrop.html

"... But it never occurred to me, while trying to decode Peckinpah's cryptic mutterings on the set of Convoy, to ask the old sand crab if he had any spare glossies of Susan George topless from Straw Dogs that I could masturb -- er, tastefully frame and hang in my "work den." ... Even if it had crossed my aforementioned mind, I would have reined in those impulses because that's the kind of classy guy I pretend to aspire to be. ... How naive I was.

"But then (deep dramatic sigh) I am a relic of a bygone, yea, heroic period, the oaken age of print, when pterodactyls ruled the skies. ...

"I'm afraid to close my eyes, for fear of the mental picture that might form. I don't want to erase every trace of my former innocence. ..."

comment #7

Zimmergirl says ...

Uh....newsflash? Figuring out Yuma was THAT complicated for you Jeff? Holy hell.

comment #8

lipranzer says ...

Before I comment, let me make a brief caveat - if you haven't read the Elmore Leonard story this is based on, or seen the original film, read no further.

Anyway: I still think Mangold was trying to have it both ways. Bale's character dying is true to Leonard's short story. But I still don't get why Crowe doesn't kill Bale himself. Just because Bale told the story of what happened with his leg? So while I understand why Crowe killed off his whole gang at the end, his mercy acts (not killing Bale himself, not killing his son) seemed contrived. Maybe not as contrived as the original (when Ford let Heflin take him on to the train because he owed him a favor), but it still didn't sit right with me, and kept me from giving the movie a grade higher than a B.

comment #9

Zimmergirl says ...

Ugh, grading films. How demoralizing. You really didn't get why he didn't kill Dan? That is amazing to me. It's set up from the very first time they meet each other - but it starts out as pity and it grows into something else. This is a movie about a window in a man's soul that is opened for a brief moment and then closed to confirm what he already knows: that life is a bucket of shit with the handles on the insides. Crowe does it all with his eyes. You could probably watch it in another language and still figure it out.

comment #10

Joe Leydon says ...

Excuse me, but I've read the original 16-page Elmore Leonard story, and I don't see how a particular character's death is "true" to Leonard's piece.

comment #11

Kristopher Tapley says ...

Not it at all, I'd say. I heard an explanation the other day that was much more cogent, in my view, and a lot more in keeping with the spirit of the genre.

Sasha?

comment #12

Devin Faraci says ...

It ends that way because Russell Crowe is a movie star who appeals to women, and so he can't be all bad.

THE END

comment #13

Terry McCarty says ...

Re the Wolcott blog entry:
It's fairly clear that he sees the recent Jeffrey/James/Nikki affair through Nikki's perspective.

When Wolcott mentions Vanessa Hudgens' "nude photo" to close his blog entry with a tsk-tsk, I wonder if there's something complex going on behind the scenes (since the Hudgens/Zac Efron romance seems like a Disney-created arrangement to me).

comment #14

BurmaShave says ...

The ending just didn't wash logistically. That was my basic problem with it, aside from the psychology of it. The son and the railroad man were both present and had guns. There's no way Foster could suddenly emerge from the cattle and kill Bale without at least some resistance from them. It may be true to the original story for Evans to die, but it smacked of nihilism, especially when compounded by the slaughter of Wade's whole gang by Wade. I think he might have killed Foster, but not all of them. Really quite unsatisfying. Though I guess it's refreshing it got through test screenings on its' own terms.

The movie as a whole is still highly enjoyable, and in the third act it really becomes Bale's film. He and Crowe have dynamite chemistry, and I hope they collaborate again. And Mangold is growing in leaps and bounds as a filmmaker. Is there any mainstream action/drama you wouldn't at least put him high on the list for?

comment #15

Silverscreenvideos says ...

My feelings about Ben Wade were the exact same after seeing this film and the Glenn Ford/Van Heflin original.

Wade is a passive/aggressive manipulator who enjoys putting people through the wringer just to see what will happen. If they please him, as his gang often did, or as Van Heflin did in the original film, he rewards them. If they don't, they pay the price.

This character trait was more obvious in the first film than in the remake, both because Glenn Ford wasn't as subtle an actor as Russell Crowe and because the extra layers of subplot and violence resulted in the remake taking a lot longer to get to the dramatic point.

Wade enjoys robbing stagecoaches; why, because he wants to see how the railroad will react. He undoubtedly enjoyed making life miserable for his gang because they were rather simple guys who could be easily manipulated as long as there was money in it at the end.

He's obviously tiring of that game, so he lets himself get captured (you never get the feeling that Wade is actually so in love/sex hungry that he allows a woman to trip him up in either film)to see what will happen next. When he realizes he's run into a man who can't be bought off or scared off, he decides to let the whole thing play out to see what will happen.

In both films, I was always struck by the logistical impossibility of the finale. There is no way that one man can maneuver another under fire for several blocks unless either the captive is scared to death (which Wade clearly wasn't) or he wants to be led. Wade wanted to let the entire scenario play out to see what would happen.

The difference between the two films is the difference between the Hollywood production code of the 1950's and today's anything goes attitude. Wade liked Evans in the sense that one might like a trained pit bull, and he was definitely annoyed that his gang spoiled his fun in the remake. But there was never a sense of redemption in either movie. Ben Wade was the exact same person at the closing credits as in the first shot.

comment #16

Zimmergirl says ...

Yeah, why is it men have a problem with the ending? Is it that spatial perception problem again?

Silverscreenvids writes about it in a way that fits, I think. What is missing, though, is that in this new film there is something that transpires between the two men - and it's right when Dan tells him that story. But it is still a game and Ben Wade does what he wants in the end, proving he is probably as charming and heartless as the devil. But there was that one moment...

comment #17

Craig Kennedy says ...

I don't have a problem with the ending, loved the movie, but thank god summer is over and there are movies worth arguing about again.

comment #18

Chicago48 says ...

that's how I saw the ending too....as Dan and Wade were running, Prince went nutso. And Wade was fearful that prince would turn on him because he would be considered the weak one like that other guy and would be shot. Yep, that's how I saw the ending too.

comment #19

Chicago48 says ...

She made 2 mistakes. Vince Foster should be Ben Foster and it's not Christina Bale....she must have had a senior moment or something.