The Assassination of Jesse James
By: Amy Nicholson
Bob Ford was 20-years-old when he begged to join Jesse James' infamous gang of train robbers. "I'm destined for great things," he puffed. By the end of the year, Ford was more famous than President Arthur for shooting James in the back just minutes after the bandit's wife fed him breakfast. A reviled Ford claimed self-defense, and Andrew Dominick's ponderous western (based on Ron Hansen's novel) spends nearly two hours piecing together his assertion bullet by bullet. Brad Pitt's James is a killer with a loud and deliberate laugh and a mouth that moves like he stuffs bullet casings under his tongue; he's a poised bullfrog preparing to strike. We suppose he's world-famous, but mainly see him alone on a horse. Pitting him against the awkward and increasingly over-confident Ford (Casey Affleck) with his sarcastic sighs and rolling eyes is like rewatching the 2000 Presidential debates, only even less fun. Dominick's film style is bleached out and tedious. The Missouri snow is blinding, the blood runs brown, and if you can stay awake through the deadening pauses between lines of dialogue, there's plenty of time to appreciate sound designer's Christopher S. Aud's omnipresent buzzing insects and chilling gusts of wind. When Ford finally pulls the trigger, it's a relief as the flick's final ten minutes spin into actually interesting terrain as James' corpse becomes a desecrated media-darling and Ford crumples under regret and the realization that the public loves murderers more than traitors. As Affleck, now tarted up in garish stage paint, pretends to pull the trigger over and over again for a paying audience of morbid theatergoers, we see the film's ultimate (though long-winded) point: That sometimes an entire life only matters for one fatal second. (Amy Nicholson)
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