My notes to this film have the heading ‘Commercial Suicide’, after all who gives away practically the entire plot and the ending in the title?
I mean if the writers of this film decided to remake some classics we might just have;
- – The Titanic hits an iceberg and inks. Then Jack dies.
- – An Extra-Terrestrial comes to Earth, befriends some kids, changes their lives and eventually gets home.
- – Andy is wrongly imprisoned and touches many lives. He eventually escapes & buddy Red gets out too.
- – There are a bunch of space battles and Darth Vader turns out to be Luke’s Father.
- – A kid sees dead people. His psychiatrist Bruce Willis is one of them.
In any case the film itself is an excellent – albeit overlong – character study that might have generated more business were it not for the fact that punters had to pause for a sip of water before they could get the title out at the ticket counter.
The film follows the last stages of the famed James gang who terrorised the United States for years, yet as often happens managed to become folk heroes in the process. When we meet Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and brother Frank (Sam Shepard), it is clear that they are past their prime as a fearsome unit, relying on past glories to keep their aura alive. Aside from Jesse and Frank though the gang members are a ragtag bunch of sketchy hacks and scrubs, among whom are the brother’s cousin Wood (Jeremy Renner), and two other brothers Charley (Sam Rockwell) and Robert Ford (Casey Affleck).
Aside from a very early train heist that shows Jesse’s true capabilities and the willingness to use unnecessary violence the film is largely about the changing relationship between Jesse and Robert Ford, who starts out a longtime ardent devotee of the renowned criminal, before as the title spells out cooling off on the man to the point where gunning him
down becomes an alternative.
Ford starts out a just happy to be there over eager hero-worshipper, breathlessly reminding Jesse of events from the past and moving perilously close to professing his love for the man, which the non-James guys remind him of when he gets ahead of himself. In these early scenes Jesse is still very much ‘the Man’, cool and menacing even at times when his guard is down, yet still capable of snap decisions culminating in brutal violence. During periods of time when the James gang weren’t actively ‘working’ Jesse nonetheless randomly showed up at the member’s homes, just to stand around and strike the fear of god into them.
Eventually Robert and Charley become semi-regulars in Jesse’s ever changing cast of fellow criminals, though it is clear and apparent to one and all that Jesse is also on the wane, physically and mentally. And he knows it too.
The film contains many long scenes with sparse dialogue, providing an ever increasing sense of the emptiness and isolation that Jesse feels, and similarly the changing in Ford’s attitude to his one time idol. At a certain point it becomes evident to both as to the
inevitable end to their relationship – perhaps because they too took the time required to read the title…
If films charged by running time this would have been a $50 ticket at 2 and ½ hours. Amazingly though the initial cut was a mind melting 4 hours plus! With an hour required to even read the title that is a genuine commitment to watch a film that gives away the ending on the poster. The film spends altogether too long dwelling on the period elapsing after the titular event, and if the title alone didn’t give it away it doesn’t shy away from casting judgment as to who is the lesser of the two men. In fact the sober voiceover narration calmly informs us that the descendants of Jesse James believe that this is exactly how it went down, despite the fact that the film shows none of them present at the time of the… unpleasantness.
As a non-American I tend not to get too caught up in canonising killers and lionising reprobates, so I see this film as a version of what might have happened, perhaps at best something as factual as possible given the information available. As it stands The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford is an interesting film covering a
declining relationship.
Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. A very well made film, very well acted, but not really very necessary.
