Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a good man in a bad situation. The former Union sharpshooter is behind on his debts, his family’s future on their desolate farm very much in jeopardy. Wife Alice (Gretchen Mol) tries to be supportive whilst youngest son Mark (Benjamin Petry) continues to look up to his father even with all the adversity. The same can’t be said for the man’s eldest boy William (Logan Lerman), however, the budding young man unable to comprehend his superior’s continued supposed timidity in the face of all hardships assaulting them.

These two opposite men with polarizing views on how to live their lives are thrust together when Wade is captured by the law. Offered enough money to get himself free of debt, Dan joins the posse escorting the outlaw to the township of Contention and be securely placed on the 3:10 train to Yuma Prison. But doing it will not be easy, especially with William secretly tagging along and Charlie and the rest of the gang dogging their every step.

Yet Dan is a man of his word. With people falling like swatted flies or fleeing away from the task like a scared colony of ants, this farmer feels responsible for doing exactly what it is he said he would. Even when the world turns against him he will not fail in the task, and with all guns blazing to stop him Dan Evans, a good man whom life has delivered a few too many bad apples, will make sure admitted bad man Ben Wade gets on that train to Yuma no matter what.

A remake of the classic 1957 Glenn Ford/Van Johnson Western, James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma is a rip-roaring throwback that, thanks to the two compelling and full-bodied performances, of the leads is a rousing winner worthy of applause. This is the genre at its best, the director delivering a good story told with aplomb, the film an entertaining Horse Opera sure to have audiences munching their popcorn and slurping their soda pop in wide-eyed delight.

It’s not all wine and roses. Giving Dan a wooden foot doesn’t work all that well as a plot device and seems more of a way to separate the film from its predecessor more than anything else. There is also a major change of heart by a character near the end that makes extremely little sense, this sudden growth of spirit and heart never fleshed out enough in the previous acts to feel like it’s at all justified. Foster also got on my nerves a little bit, but only slightly so mentioning is probably much ado about nothing.

All that said, 3:10 to Yuma certainly did its job and kept me entertained, sometimes blissfully so. For a girl raised on Westerns like The Man from Laramie, The Searchers, Rio Bravo, A Fistful of Dollars and the original at times this one is definitely a total kick in the pants. Crowe and Bale immerse themselves completely inside Mangold’s milieu, and by the time the bullets started flying and Ben and Dan were bounding over rooftops my heart was beating in idyllic joy.