REEL CRITIC:

Every few years Hollywood attempts, thus far without notable success, to revive the Western. Some of the revivals have been successful such as Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven,” which garnered the Academy Award for best picture and director in 1993. However, not even this venerable example enjoyed huge box-office success by today’s standards.

The latest western offering is “3:10 to Yuma” starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in a remake of a 1957 film of the same name.

Crowe plays Ben Wade, a ruthless outlaw terrorizing the Arizona territory in the years after the Civil War.

Cocky, arrogant, yet brilliant, Wade has eluded all efforts to bring him to justice.

Wade’s men are a bunch of homicidal maniacs led by his self-appointed second-in-command Charlie Prince (Ben Foster).

After successfully holding up a stagecoach transporting the Southern Pacific Railroad payroll, Wade goes to Bisbee, Ariz., to let off some steam.

He carelessly allows his gang to leave town without him and gets caught by the local sheriff and Southern Pacific agent Butterfield (Dallas Roberts).

Because of the nature of his crimes and the danger he poses to the public, Wade must be taken to the town of Contention. There he will board the 3:10 train to the federal prison in Yuma where he will most likely be hanged.

To throw Wade’s gang off their trail, the lawmen send a decoy stagecoach in the wrong direction while the outlaw is secretly spirited out of town on horseback.

Local men volunteer for this dangerous assignment mostly due to the pay being offered by the railroad.

Among these men is rancher Dan Evans (Bale), a one-legged Civil War veteran being slowly starved out by lack of rain and ruthless land speculators.

Evans is desperate for the $200 being offered by Butterfield.

This paltry sum will rescue his ranch from foreclosure but probably won’t restore the waning faith of his wife (Gretchen Mol) and oldest son Billy (Logan Lerman).

It is clear he will lose everything he holds dear should the ranch fail.

“3:10 to Yuma” is worth seeing as an engaging action film alone and director James Mangold (“Walk the Line”) keeps the story moving at a fast clip throughout its nearly two-hour running time. However, it is the human portrayals that set this film above more pedestrian fare.

Both Wade and Evans are deeply drawn characters. Wade is not simply the inhuman sociopath he first appears to be.

Although his gang consists of “animals” by his own description, Wade retains a shred of humanity that he purposely conceals.

Evans, on the other hand, is much more than the perpetual victim he has come to personify. We come to realize he is actually a pillar of unwavering strength and character.

Even if you are not enamored of westerns, “3:10 to Yuma” is worth seeing. While the time period and setting certainly relegate the film to this genre, they merely serve as a touchstone and do not limit the resulting story in any way.

Anyone who fails to see “3:10 to Yuma” simply because it is a Western is missing one of the year’s best movies.

VAN NOVACK is the assistant vice president of institutional research and assessment at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife, Elizabeth.