The presidential elections held in 1988 marked a watershed in Mexican politics, as they were the first serious threat to the party in power by an opposition candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a defector from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and son of former President Lazaro Cardenas, who was nominated by a broad coalition of leftist parties. He officially received 31.1 percent of the vote, against 50.4 percent for Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the PRI candidate, and 17 percent for Manuel Clouthier of the National Action Party (PAN). It was widely said that Cardenas had won the election, but that the then government-controlled electoral commission had altered the results after the infamous "glitch in the system" (se cayó el sistema, as it was reported).

In the concurrent elections, the PRI came within 11 seats of losing the majority of Chamber of Deputies, and opposition parties captured 4 of the 64 Senate seats - the first time that the PRI had failed to hold every seat in the Senate. Capitalizing on the popularity of President Salinas, however, the PRI rebounded in the mid-term congressional elections of 1991, winning 320 seats.

Subsequent changes included the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute in the 1990s and the inclusion of proportional representation and first minority seats in the Senate. The presidential election of 1994 was judged to be the first relatively free election in modern Mexican history. Ernesto Zedillo of the PRI won with 50.2 percent of the vote, against 26.7 percent for Diego Fernández de Cevallos of PAN and 17.1 percent for Cardenas, who this time represented the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Although the opposition campaign was hurt by the desire of the Mexican electorate for stability, following the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the intended PRI candidate, and the recent outbreak of hostilities in the state of Chiapas, Zedillo's share of the vote was the lowest official percentage for any PRI presidential candidate up to that time.

If newspapers are the first draft of history and books are the second draft, then screenplays are third drafts, much edited.

Finally, as to the ease of being arrrested, well yes, of course -- that's precisely the film's point -- in delineating Crowe's character, we are given all kinds of indications of his reckless self-confidence, his conviction that he can Houdini himself out of any minor restraint that a bunch of bumpkins can wrap him in. He is playing a game, and this is one more illustration of that.

I recommend another viewing of this fine film.

Juliette Binoche is in that? How weird.

So the consensus here is that Crowe was just trying to seriously up the ante on his next escape?
I thought it was more of a mystical ending, where he was atoning and in a fashion taking on the character (and actualizing the will) of the one-legged rancher.
Not that that is particularly satisfying, but that's how I read it.

The trek getting to the train was pretty ridiculous. Why would Crowe go along with it when he didn't have to and it was damn dangerous as everyone in town is shooting at them?

Why would Crowe off his entire gang? This made little sense, especially if he was planning to escape. Escape to what? Having no gang and being known as the guy who offed all his pals for no reason? I'd be more willing to believe that he'd escape to go back to the rancher's hot wife and cheeky kid.

I could believe that he offed his gang because the right-hand man had become too ruthless and efficient, and therefore too much of a threat to his top dog status.