Dan Evans is the Charlie Brown of the post-Civil War American west. He just can’t win. His wife looks at him with disappointment and disdain. His eldest son thinks he’s a lily-livered coward. His creditors bully and insult him. Even nature thumbs her nose at him, refusing to give him the rain he needs to water the pastures that could feed his starving cattle. Only his youngest son still looks at him with admiration, mostly because he’s too young yet to know what a failure his father has become since the Civil War crippled him. The worn out desperation in Christian Bale’s eyes only serves to underline his character’s inability to catch a break.

On the flipside of that coin is the outlaw Ben Wade. Quick with a pistol, a ruthless killer, and the perpetrator of a daring series of armored carriage and train robberies that has railroad executives seething, Wade is also a charming and sociopathic rogue who could probably talk the pants off his sworn enemy’s wife. Or his sworn enemy. Wade can’t lose, because he doesn’t really believe in losing. Russell Crowe plays him with a cocky twinkle in his eye that occasionally flashes with the menace it skillfully conceals.

James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma, a remake of the 50-year-old film of the same name (or a reimagining of the early Elmore Leonard short story, take your pick) crosses the paths of these two polarized characters, and sees what happens when their personalities and fortunes intertwine. For after his first chance meeting with Evans, Wade errs and ends up in the hands of the law. Evans, hopeful that fortune is finally shining on him, joins the motley crew of captors intent on getting Wade on the train to Yuma for a proper trial that will lead to his proper hanging. It’s no easy task with Wade’s gang in hot pursuit.