[MikeWaters]

The basic plot behind this movie, if you are not familiar with it, is that a struggling rancher (Bale) who is about to lose his ranch because he is late on his payments in the next week, agrees to help transport an outlaw (Crowe) to a neighboring town in order to get him on the train to be tried and hanged. Of course the outlaw's gang is trying to prevent him from getting on the train.

The thing is that this movie doesn't immediately reveal what it is. At first you believe the dilemma is between choosing the money to transport versus not. Because transporting has a high chance of death. And you may believe that it becomes a matter of good versus evil. A morality play. What is the best thing to do , the moral thing to do , when no one will do it. But the part that really makes the movie good in my opinion, is that it is really none of those things. It is about father measuring up to his son, and showing his son the moral path, when the son's moral future is uncertain. And the rancher turns his son from the temptation of the immoral charismatic path (Crowe).

In a way this film reminded me of "Field of Dreams". I think FoD is probably the superior movie. But the similarity is that when I first saw FoD at the age of 18, I didn't "get it". Many years later I saw it again, and it packed a wallop. This movie too is about father and son, and that will mean something to some people, and will not mean much to others.

Now is it a film for the ages? Probably not. But I enjoyed it, and would see it again.