I’m not generally in favor of remakes in which an earlier film is reconstructed, almost word for word, by another cast and director. But when both films are based on the same novel or story, I can just consider the second film a different version of the original story.

3:10 to Yuma, based on a 1953 short story by novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard, was first filmed in 1957, with director Delmer Daves, Glenn Ford as the dangerous outlaw Ben Wade, and Van Heflin as cattle farmer Dan Evans. One of the best Westerns of the 1950s, the black-and-white film was a great success in an era when the genre was almost guaranteed to bring in good box-office profits. In the years since, the Western has died as a viable form of Hollywood entertainment. There have been attempts to resurrect it, with such films as Silverado (1985), Dances with Wolves (1990), and the revisionist Unforgiven (1992), but though these movies individually won praise, they have not ignited a Western revival.

The 2007 edition of 3:10 to Yuma provides another opportunity, and proves that action films need not be relegated to spy or martial arts stories. And it hits with a heavy cast. Handsome, irascible Russell Crowe plays the outlaw Wade, and the new Batman, Christian Bale, is rancher Evans. It’s in color and widescreen, and packs into its 117 minutes (the 1957 version was only 92 minutes) more plot elements, deeper characterization, and generally enlarges the story.

On the surface, the plot is simplicity itself: a knockoff of High Noon in which rancher Evans agrees to escort Wade to the train station to put him on the 3:10 prison train to Yuma, Arizona. As the hours go by, everyone deserts Evans, the bad guys are coming to town in force to spring Wade, and we know there will be a final shoot-out. But this new version delves deeper into the relationship between the bad guy and the good guy. What made each the way he is? What secrets does each carry? Why does one regard the other as a hero? The carefully written dialogue for Wade and Evans answers many of these questions while leaving some to speculation.

But just because the filmmakers try to get inside the characters, don’t feel that the killing is neglected. These bad guys are really bad. They shoot without question or thought. There’s no "I’m gonna kill you ’cause you shot my pa, whaddaya think of that?" There’s no time for an answer because the question is never asked. The killing is sudden and brutal, and the line is clearly drawn between good and bad.

As Wade, Russell Crowe is smooth and deceptive. Though he’s charming on the surface, we know that, inside, he’s a cold-blooded killer. As played by Christian Bale, Evans, too, is complicated. This time around Evans has a bum leg, and lives a lie: he’s told people he got the wound while fighting in the Civil War. The rest of the cast is ideal. Special mention needs to be given Ben Foster as Wade’s right-hand man, Charlie Prince, about the baddest psychotic gunman you’ll see in any genre. Foster’s zeal seems so genuine that he’s genuinely frightening to watch -- whenever he’s onscreen, I can’t take my eyes off him, wondering what bad thing he’ll be up to next. The role clearly makes him a candidate for the year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Foster played Russell Corwin, Claire Fisher’s sensitive sometime boyfriend, in the hit HBO series Six Feet Under; in hindsight, his final appearance in that series, in an art gallery scene, now seems to look forward to the role of Charlie Prince.

Director James Mangold does a generally good job, but the pacing is off every now and then, which robs the film of some suspense. And the dialogue is sometimes hard to understand, which also occasionally slows things down. But overall, 3:10 to Yuma is grand entertainment, a traditional Western set in a gritty Old West where the only law was the gun -- especially when that gun was in the hand of Charlie Prince or Ben Wade.

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