| ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES… |  |
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The Vitals :
| Rated : | R |
| Runtime : | 2:40 |
| Directed By : | Andrew Dominik |
| Starring : | Brad Pitt |
| Casey Affleck | |
| Sam Rockwell | |
| Mary-Louise Parker | |
| Sam Shepard |
In rating this movie, I had a really hard time deciding what genre it belonged to. It’s a western sure, but this isn’t your grandpa’s six-shooter spaghetti western. It’s got a plot that isn’t so straight and narrow – something we can sink our teeth into. It’s kind of a biopic, but there are a lot of characters and it jumps around following different ones at different times. Sure there’s action mixed in as well, but I think it is best described as a drama – one that just happens to be a period-piece as well.
Brad Pitt is the big name here, starring as the title character Jesse James, but the real main character of the movie is the other title character Robert Ford – played by Casey Affleck. Having recently watched a mediocre Affleck in ‘Gone Baby Gone’, I must say that this performance is much better. No surprises really about how the movie progresses, the title pretty much tells you what’s going to happen. Of course, if you’re a historian and you know a little more about the events that transpired, you may question how true to fact this movie really is. I wondered that myself sitting in the theater, but I was uneducated as to the topic matter. So, just now I did some looking on the internet and from what I can tell the movie is very factual. It might take some liberties with the details, but as far as I can tell the events happen as they really did.
When we join the James Gang at the beginning of the film, they are encamped in a forest anticipating the heist that is to come. We find out that the original James Gang has been mostly decimated by arrests and deaths, and pretty much the remaining members are a middle-aged Jesse James and his older brother Frank James played very well by the grizzled Sam Shepherd. The rest of the gang is formed of loose relatives and acquaintances including supposed cousins Robert Ford and his brother Charles (Sam Rockwell). It seems like the James brothers have more ‘cousins’ than they know what to do with. Anyhow, the robbery at Blue Cut, Missouri proceeds as planned and although the haul is a little light the James brothers had decided that this would be their last train robbery and the time had come to attempt living as a normal citizen.
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| The train robbery is a memorable scene |
Jesse befriends Robert… well actually I don’t know if befriend is the right word. More like ‘is amused by’. Anyway, Jesse is amused by Robert Ford, and so he invites him to stay with him for a couple of days after the robbery. Nothing could please young Mr. Ford more, having been a fan of the myth that is Jesse James his whole adolescent life. Later on in the movie, we see a shoebox under Robert’s bed filled with Jesse James comics and ‘nickel-books’.
The character of Jesse James is presented in a fantastic way in this movie. He isn’t the bullet-firing, masked renegade that I expected. He is a calm, calculated, thinker that can read people so well he probably would have been a hell of a poker player. Pitt is perfectly suited for this. His facial expressions and mannerisms let us in a little on what Jesse is thinking, but we’re never quite certain what he’ll do next. He is always alert, always thinking, always on his toes. What does Jesse know? What doesn’t he know? This builds the drama and draws in the audience.
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| James usually has a far-off look, like he is calculating scenarios in his mind. |
Some time passes and James eventually plans another bank robbery. We’re not sure why … maybe the last haul wasn’t enough, or maybe he just has an itch he has to scratch. His list of allies growing slimmer as the reward on his head increases, Jesse turns to Charles Ford to assist him in a bank robbery. Charles recommends that they bring Robert along – and although Jesse is rightfully suspicious of him he agrees.
I don’t want to go too far into what happens next for fear of ruining the movie for anyone – so I’ll just point out one major observation I had about the scene that is the title of the movie. Jesse more or less figures out that Robert is going to betray him (or at least we think he does – which is the beauty of this movie … we’re never sure) and Robert seems to pick up on this. Inexplicably, Jesse disarms himself and places himself in a very compromising position. Why would someone so intellectual let this happen? I can only draw two conclusions. Either he believed that Robert would not have the guts to do what he did or wouldn’t do it at that time in Jesse’s own house with his family present, or he wanted to be killed. The more I thought about it the more I leaned towards the latter. Dying makes him a legend and if he didn’t much care for the life of an upstanding citizen, that would be a way out. I’ll leave it to you to decide what you think.
The movie is a bit long and a bit sluggish at times, but it’s entirely forgivable when you take the movie as a whole. The score is interestingly done. I vividly recall thinking that the score was perfectly done during the train robbery. Deep, ominous tones that foretold bad things coming for the train’s passengers. The same bit is used later only this time against Jesse James on the moments leading up to his death. Other times the score is quirkly, almost whimsical and at least for my taste it didn’t seem to fit the mood of the movie.
I can’t complain about the costume or settings the movie utilizes except I guess to say that with the similarly bland clothes and beards some of the more minor characters start to blend together after a while. But there’s only so much you can do with a Western in terms of the dusty roads and towns with wooden houses and picket fences. Utilizing the wheat fields and forests in many scenes was a good choice.
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| Gay ? I don’t know… I don’t see it. |
There are rumblings on the internet about the movie implying that Robert Ford was gay and desired a relationship with Jesse James. I can see why people might think that, but I think for the most part people might just be taking the ‘hero-worship’ thing a little too far. It’s a compliment to Affleck though that this element of the movie was portrayed in such a strong light.
Despite all the praise I can give it, the movie might have a hard time fitting in with many of its potential fans. Western fans will be confused and bored by the plodding pace of the movie. Action fans won’t find enough action to satisfy. Jesse James fans will be less than enthusiastic about all the time where Jesse James is almost a secondary character in the movie. History buffs might poke holes in the plot or costumes or what have you. There’s very little romance to be found. But for the all-around movie lover there’s a lot to like here and it’s definitely worth your time. The more I think about it, the more I liked it.
