‘3:10 to Yuma’ does Western genre proud. The skillfully acted remake boasts what may be a career-making performance from young Ben Foster.

To call James Mangold’s “3:10 to Yuma” the best American-made Western since “Unforgiven” is not quite the redundancy it seems. After all, who says Westerns have to take place in America?

If one expands the taxonomy to encompass frontiers both domestic and foreign - a policy, by the way, that I enthusiastically endorse - then the hard-bitten Australian drama “The Proposition” (2006) must be considered the most meaningful, riveting, non-Clint Eastwood-affiliated Western of the past 15 years.

That said, “3:10 to Yuma” is an outstanding specimen. Based on an early short story by “Get Shorty” writer Elmore Leonard (and previously incarnated as the 1957 mano-a-mano classic starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin) this star-laden Old West thriller squeezes Leonard’s ripe premise for a scintillating tale of human will.

The cast, as one can plainly see, is awesome. In his most evenly layered, leading-man performance to date, Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a hobbled Civil War veteran trying to make ends meet as an Arizona rancher in the face of drought, harassing creditors and the cruel, undisguised disgust of eldest son William (Logan Lerman).

Faced with eviction by land-grubbing railroad lackeys, Evans refuses to budge. “I’m sick of the way the boys look at me,” he tells wife Alice (Gretchen Mol). “I’m sick of the way you don’t.”

Salvation for Evans comes in an unusual, deadly package: Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw boss captured in the nearby town of Bisbee and earmarked for trial in Yuma. Played smoothly by Russell Crowe as a cultured if instantly lethal charmer, Wade will require a chaperone of a half-dozen men to make the three-day journey to the train station. Enticed by enough money to get the ranch out of hock, Evans signs up.

What follows is a rocking Old West amalgam of “Lifeboat” and “Pitch Black,” as Evans and the other men — including Pinkerton hatchet man McElroy (Peter Fonda) - attempt to ferry Wade across the desert, beset on all sides by hostile Indians, vengeful train foremen and the leaderless “pack of dogs” that constitute Wade’s crew.

Of course, a more subtle, internal journey also takes place: the hyper-cynical Wade sees in Evans some of the stalwart virtue he thought had gone missing from the world, and secretly begins to revere him. Director Mangold (“Walk the Line”) presumes a modest dose of suspended disbelief here. After all, Wade might sketch pretty pictures and wear a crucifix on his gun handle, but it still seems unlikely that a thief and murderer so prolific would harbor such an easy-to-access idealistic streak.

Despite their mutual thirst for the big scene, Crowe and Bale coexist comfortably, but the real revelation is “Alpha Dog” actor Ben Foster as Wade’s devoted aide-de-camp. Part killer, part desert dandy, Foster gives the kind of magnetically villainous performance that alerted the world to Jack Palance in “Shane” (1953). He does for the white tunic what Palance once did for the black hat.

‘3:10 to Yuma’

Stars: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Ben Foster

Behind the scenes: Directed by James Mangold from a script by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt and Derek Hass

Rated: R for violence and some profanity

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Grade: B+