Today sees the release of a sparkling new Criterion version of “3:10 To Yuma,” the perpetually-underrated 1957 Western that’s somewhat overshadowed by the more recent 2007 remake. Even those who have seen the earlier version may not be entirely aware that it’s based on a short story by a man that we consider not just one of America’s finest crime novelists, but one of our finest writers full stop: Elmore Leonard.
For over 60 years, the now-87-year-old author has been working at a prodigious rate, cranking out countless short stories and novels, often funny, intricately plotted crime tales, frequently set in his hometown of Detroit, and full of eccentric characters, sparkling dialogue and brutal violence. Stephen King called him “the great American writer,” and Martin Amis once told him at a live event “Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy.”
It’s no surprise, given the nature of his writing, that Leonard has long appealed to Hollywood and his work has been gracing the screen in various forms for over 50 years. We couldn’t be bigger fans of Leonard, and so to mark the Criterion release of “3:10 To Yuma,” we’ve gone back and watched every major big-screen Leonard adaptation (excepting anything made for TV — see the bottom of the piece for more), and ranked them from worst to best. So what came out top? Have a look below to find out and let us know your own favorite Leonard adaptation in the comments section.
21. “Be Cool” (2005)
You know when a band reunites years after their prime for a cash-grab tour followed by an album significantly worse than anything they did before, which serves only to sully the reputation of their earlier work? “Be Cool” is the movie equivalent of that. A decade after the success of “Get Shorty” revived interest in Elmore Leonard on screen, John Travolta returned to the role of Chilli Palmer in an adaptation of the writer’s 1999 sequel novel (itself inspired by the success of the earlier movie), which sees him getting out of the movie industry and helping Edie, the widow (Uma Thurman) of a recently-deceased record mogul pal (James Woods), fend off the attentions of thuggish managers Nick and Raji (Harvey Keitel and Vince Vaughn) and gangster-turned-super-producer Sin (Cedric the Entertainer), while also plotting stardom for singing sensation Linda Moon (Christina Milian). But what seemed effortless when Scott Frank and Barry Sonnenfeld were in charge feels desperately, hopelessly strained the second time around. In fairness, the novel “Be Cool” is far from Leonard’s finest hour, but it’s a masterpiece compared to the laugh-less script by Peter Steinfeld (“Analyze That“) and tension-free direction by F. Gary Gray. Creaky and dated, the moment the sets were taken down (not helped by the presence of the now-forgotten, deeply bland Milian and cameos from the likes of Fred Durst), it seems to have been made by people with no sense of how the record industry actually works or any feel for what made “Get Shorty” so enjoyable. Even the impressive-on-paper cast disappoints; Travolta and Thurman display little of their “Pulp Fiction” chemistry (not least when Gray decides to reprise their famous dance sequence in front of a live performance by the Black Eyed Peas), Keitel is sleepwalking and Vaughn, at the nadir of his pre-“Wedding Crashers” slump, is phenomenally annoying. The sole bright light is Dwayne Johnson, charismatic and funny as Vaughn’s gay, country-music loving bodyguard (though the film sells him up the river too). Pretty much a disaster from start to finish. [F]
20. “Freaky Deaky” (2012)
The most recent screen-adaptation of a Leonard novel, “Freaky Deaky” is one of the writer’s best-loved stories and was one of the package of options that Miramax picked up in the mid-1990s for Quentin Tarantino (with “Rum Punch,” aka “Jackie Brown,” the major beneficiary). The rights eventually lapsed, and after cycling through various cast options including Matt Dillon, Sienna Miller and William H. Macy, Charles Matthau (son of the great Walter) finally got rolling on this independent, low-budget adaptation. As you might expect from its Z-list cast, it’s pretty dreadful. Transplanting the original novel to the 1970s for no apparent reason, it sees ex-bomb squad cop Chris (Billy Burke) drawn into the world of lunatic heir Woody Ricks (Crispin Glover) after he’s accused of rape, just as the millionaire finds himself the target of ex-radical bomb-makers Robin and Skip (Breanne Racano and Christian Slater). There’s plenty of other colorful figures knocking around, most memorably Michael Jai White as Glover’s Machiavellian bodyguard (and least memorably, Andy Dick as a movie producer), but the cast have such low star-wattage (Burke in particular virtually fades into the background) that it’s never especially entertaining, even if Matthau has directly transposed much of Leonard’s dialogue, which crackles, but never takes off. More crucially, the writer-director ensures that the wacky dial has been turned up to 11 which 1) doesn’t make it any funnier and 2) undermines the more serious elements — it’s hard to take a shine to the ker-azzzy characters when there’s a sexual assault sub-plot in the mix as well. The ultra-low production values (most of the budget seems to have gone on music clearance) could be forgiven; a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes Leonard tick can’t be. [F]