By Fred Venturini, PWTorch Wrestling Movie Specialist

A disclaimer - "3:10 to Yuma" does not contain any wrestlers in a starring or supporting role. While many may think that this is not in the spirit or promise of my reviews, I'm here to support one of the year's best films that reminds anyone who loves wrestling what is so deficient in sports entertainment today, and a glaring reminder that professional screenwriters need influence on the WWE writing team.

Yuma is a remake of a 1957 film that lacked an entire second act and felt unfinished. This remake is not only a rare case of being superior to the original, but a true Hollywood rarity - a niche film (Western, which is even more rare) that can already be proclaimed a financial success and box office champ. While this is likely a credit to the draw of Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, it's easy to see what drew them to their roles in this movie - complexity, honesty, and a fundamental change in their characters.

Dan Evans (Bale) is a failing rancher and a flawed man - the writers even gave him a vital, physical trait to relay this. He lost a leg in the Civil War and now hobbles about his ranch, trying to win the respect of his wife and his son. He's failing, going broke, and the walls are closing in on him. His path crosses with Ben Wade (Crowe) a villain of such complexity that we can't help but like him just a little - until he reminds us how quickly he can turn cruel. Through a series of events that can only be called fate (for Dan) and reckless disinterest (for Ben), Dan ends up as part of a posse determined to get Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma prison, where execution waits. The problem - the posse is no match for Ben, and certainly no match for Ben's vicious gang, which seeks to free him with abandon.

If this sounds like a Western actioner, it is. But not in a Die Hard sense. All the violence has a point. The clock ticks, the odds stack up against Dan. Ben tries to feel out Dan's weaknesses and push them until he might crack. This push / pull between these powerful characters creates a dynamic that keeps us interested - and results in a third act that combines the best of action and conflict until the climax explodes.

The movie drove my wife to tears and inspiration by the time it was over. While I'm more adept at pointing out the exact mechanics of how these effects were achieved, when well-done, they simply appeal to a person's inner core to move, inspire, and entertain.

This is when wrestling is at it's very best - and what's missing from wrestling today. Let's make some comparisons.

Dan Evans is the babyface. He tries his best to support his wife and family with his bum leg. He walks the straight and narrow. He's made mistakes and wants to make up for them. He has drive, determination, and does the right thing. The rest of his posse exposes their flaws and drives home the fact that here's a guy that despite his frail exterior has an inner fortitude we can get behind. He resists bribes, looks danger in the eye, and doesn't care about long odds stacked up against him. Never once do we get the sense that he's a superman that's going to overcome these odds. We feel that he will fail - but maybe he will surprise us. This is a babyface - he is a good person trying to do the right thing the right way, and has to overcome odds laid before him not only by the villain, but face his own demons as well because maybe, just maybe, he hasn't always been such a brave and noble man.

John Cena [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

For instance, this is where John Cena has failed as a character. He has no inner character flaw. He is represented as a superman that can defeat giants, two men at a time, or single-handedly win a battle royal. While the pre-injury storyline had Randy Orton attacking his family to raise the stakes a bit, true drama isn't created by the villain being meaner, it's by the hero having longer odds against him and finding realistic ways to overcome them. Currently, stacking up more or bigger opponents is a spent trick that offers no more intrigue. For the casual viewer, we knew that Cena is a superman. When Orton attacked Cena's father, well, then he became a mad superman. He was going to kill Randy Orton. No drama. WWE might think I'd pay money to see Orton get his, but the truth is, I'd much rather pay my money to see if Cena can overcome some sort of odds.

Ben Wade from Yuma is in many ways the perfect villain. He calculating and a charismatic speaker, especially when compared to the gang of thugs that both fear and admire him. He is capable of finding the crack in the babyface's armor and pushing it further and further. He is totally confident, and looks you dead in the eye and will say, there isn't a good thing about me. I will take every shortcut and live a better life than you, and there's nothing you can do about it. He is vicious enough to turn on his own men, if it serves his end. This makes you want to see him get defeated, but how can the simple babyface achieve this? Seems almost impossible - but we want to see him try.

And try he does. In wrestling, this climax is the final match between the two, or blowoff match. The matches between the two beforehand are actually act breaks that should push the story of their feud in a different - and surprising - direction. Wade, to me, can be compared to a great leader of a wrestling faction (his gang). Evans, to me, can be categorized as the babyface battling injury to overcome. And in the end, a great wrestling blowoff match should see both characters undergoing a significant change due to their confrontation. The babyface should find strength and honor he didn't know he had, and the villain, but up against such power, should see a vile reflection of himself staring back - thus driving him to fight harder, and when he succumbs, find his respect for the hero and perhaps even redemption for himself, in his own unique way.

If wrestling adopted these age-old and proven dramatic strategies, we would have more complex and involving characters. I feel that the writing team in WWE should have screenwriters on their staff - pry those who have worked on quality television shows or movies, writers who can take the same characters and put them in fresh situations and peel back new layers of their character over a long period of time. Give a screenwriter exclusive reign over a feud between two characters, and let him work at least until the first act. If the feud isn't catching on, let him work out of it. If it's a great feud, let him finish it until the blowoff match. Sounds simple, but with suspensions and injuries, by golly, they might need creative professionals who can adapt to such conditions? And perhaps turn these unforeseen events into plot twists?

If it were me - and I do dabble in screenwriting - the Cena-Orton storyline would ideally be molded to make each character more complex and make their match more intriguing. This could be accomplished with a simple twist - Cena snapping on Bob Orton and hurting him.

Cena could find himself shocked at his own actions - he would then have self-doubt. This distraction would lead to an embarrassing, clean television loss, where he would realize that this distraction is crippling his performance. Randy Orton, the true villain, would reveal he doesn't care about his father and Cena only hurt himself, and vows to take his final shred of pride, along with his title, using any means necessary. He asks for a no disqualification match and gets it.

Cena, in a response, becomes human for once. He talks about how the loss bothered him, and how he realized that anyone can have a moment of darkness. He relives the moment he snapped on Bob Orton and vows to never let himself become that low again. He talks about the no DQ match and says he doesn't need shortcuts - he's going to prove to everyone, especially Randy Orton, that he can defend his title without shortcuts. And he's going to redeem himself for his mistake by wrestling a clean match, and he's going to dedicate it to his own father and Bob Orton, as an apology. Orton comes out and hits him with a weapon on the go-home show, driving home the point that Orton is in a better position to win with his invulnerable confidence, the fact that the attack on Bob Orton didn't phase his evil heart, and that he's willing to use the no DQ rules to cheat to win. Cena is left battered, maybe a bit injured, and vulnerable physically and psychologically.

The match is then a push / pull between the two schools of thought. Though Cena can use weapons or cheating tactics with no recourse, he resists when the opportunity arises. Orton puts him through a wringer of cheats, perhaps a few choice weapon strikes, and has the upper hand. Cena doesn't quit, mounts his comeback and defeats Orton.

Orton realizes that his shortcuts are no match for heart, honesty, and determination. Frustrated, he walks to the back - Bob Orton cuts him off and starts clapping. He says that he's proud of his son's effort and wants a hug. Randy can then hug him and show some emotion and perhaps signs of an inner struggle, or he can walk away and continue to play the heartless heel. Either way, you can keep him as a main heel.

Of course, for my proposal to work, the match would have to be passable and Orton would have to show some glimpse of range or charisma. Personally, I think he's got it and you won't convince me otherwise until he gets less sketchy character material.

If you scoff at how this would work to add intrigue to the match, I urge you to go see 3:10 to Yuma and watch the last third of the movie with wrestling in mind. You will see all of the great things that make the inner workings of a wrestling storyline and climax wonderful.

The film is brilliant, as are the performances. The movie will be nominated for Oscars, to be sure, but I just couldn't stop thinking about how the basics of great storytelling and something as fundamental and necessary as a character arc are elements often overlooked in modern WWE storylines and wrestlers. They don't have to be brilliant actors, just passable with good material. WWE material is rotten, clunky, on-the-fly, and lacks any type of professionalism or a grip with the basics of storytelling, conflict, or real dramatic art. They are hacks, and the reason the WWE product suffers, moreso than the poor choice of wrestlers to push. As it is said in the profession, a great director and great actors can make a good screenplay great, but nothing and no one can make a bad screenplay great.

In WWE, a great match can help save a rotten storyline, but when the poor choices for creative talent are paired with bad choices of talent to push, consistently, ratings will suffer because people will find the product too easy to skip.

And if you couldn't tell, I give "3:10 to Yuma" four solid stars and urge you to check it out. You may want to be a better person when you walk out of the theater.

Fred Venturini is the PWTorch Wrestling Movie Specialist.

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