Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

Get out of town. Now, right now, or you’ll be shot on sight. Not fair? Not legal? Well, maybe not. But 100 years ago in the old west, lawmen practiced their own brand of frontier justice, and banishment wasn’t such a bad rap. It beat a bullet in the gut.

Marshall Raylan Givens should have been born a cowboy with pistols slung low on his hips and spurs on his boots. He is a man born a century too late, a man who reacts with confusion when he gets in trouble for shooting the armed criminal he ordered out of town. The criminal drew first, after all. Raylan was justified.

Unfortunately for Raylan, Miami in 2010 doesn’t appreciate his brand of justice. FX’s new drama “Justified” opens with a cute visual pun, giving us a few seconds to key in on Raylan’s white cowboy hat before revealing the palm trees of a lush Florida resort. After the shooting (justified, of course) Raylan finds himself shipped off to his home state of Kentucky to stay out of trouble. His first step is to get into a whole heap of it.

“Justified” is a smart police drama with tinges of black comedy thanks to the unusual combination of clever dialogue and good old country accents. Timothy Olyphant plays US Marshall Givens with a devilish gleam in his eye and an easy saunter in his step, drawing inspiration from his role as lawman Seth Bullock in the HBO western “Deadwood.” But though Bullock struggled with his position of leadership and responsibility in “Deadwood,” Raylan Givens is quite happy in his work.

The story flies along at a brisk pace thanks to Olyphant’s excellent performance, but he’s nearly shown up by Walton Goggins, who plays Boyd Crowder, a wild neo-Nazi who was a childhood friend of Marshall Raylan. Separately, the two characters drive the plot, but once they’re united the snappy dialogue really hits its stride.

“Justified” is adapted from a short story by prolific novelist Elmore Leonard (“3:10 to Yuma”), and the strength of the source material shows. The motif of a lawman born a century too late runs central to the show’s plot, but doesn’t completely define it: Raylan’s character clearly has an abundance of depth to be explored in later episodes.

The big question is how well the show can build on the foundation of Leonard’s writing. As entertaining as the intense western-style showdowns are, the star attraction is the dialogue. Between Olyphant’s casual, sarcastic delivery and Goggins’ excitable ravings,“Justified” certainly has a bright future ahead of it, assuming the writing remains sharp.

If the pilot is any indication, “Justified” may succeed where its main character fails: finding itself in the right place and time as a welcome alternative to the more traditional police dramas on television.