Recently we saw The Painted Veil & 3:10 to Yuma. My parents recommended Veil and Ken & I liked it. It's filmed really beautifully and Naomi Watts & Edward Norton are very good, as always. My only real complaint is that, for a movie that takes place almost entirely in China, there's barely a Chinese character worth mentioning in the entire movie. What the heck? WQS!
Yuma was also good, altho the end is pretty much completely baffling. But Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are excellent, as always, as well. Crowe's off-screen persona is annoying but I have to admit he's a good actor. Ben Foster is also really good as Crowe's second-in-command.
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one particular aspect of the film that is especially provocative is the question of evil: is russell crowe's character so reprehensible as to be beyond evil itself? crowe's 'lieutenant', although a man with little conscience, demonstrates absolute loyalty to crowe, following his leader's trail to rescue him, only to succumb to crowe's conclusive (and irrational) rage. on the surface, crowe's turn toward christian bale's character at the end of the film may seem as some kind of repentance, an acknowledgment of sin and guilt, and the killing of his own lieutenant may seem as a morality-inspired gesture. on the other hand, there are problems with this reading. for example, little is attempted to communicate to his lieutenant that he has had a change of heart and wants to board the train of his own volition. in addition, crowe's sudden inspiration to help his captor lead him to his own demise is inexplicable, uncompelling, and lame. at best, crowe's sudden change of character, from villain to saint, is a 'game' that merely provides entertainment for crowe, and at the end, his offing of his entire crew is akin to poor sportsmanship. in this sense, crowe is someone who is unlike his own crew, who have 'animal' instincts, complete with an internally consistent logic of defending the herd, demonstrating loyalty to the alpha male, etc. crowe's barbarism is beyond understanding, beyond morality (even an evil morality), and he has a capacity for an evil beyond evil itself. this reading of the film is only compromised by the (incomprehensible) scene where crowe does not shoot the boy, when the boy threateningly points at crowe -- if he did, it would have been a more complete character study of evil, where no one is left standing except the man in black.
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