Review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Assassination

Bloated, epic, boring, and beautiful. All of those words can easily describe The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Andrew Dominik’s second feature is ambitious and successful in some part but flawed nonetheless.

Similar to Dominik’s first feature Chopper, which focused on a charismatic criminal, “Assassination” shows Jesse James as a celebrity in the post-Civil War U.S. His crimes have reached a notorious level in which everybody knows him and either love him or hate him, seeing him as a new age Robin Hood or a petty criminal. Robert Ford is a nobody who is a sort of Jesse James groupie who aspires to be like his ideal. Once Ford meets and joins James in his robberies, what ensues is an obsession that takes control of Ford’s life leading him to his eventual betrayal and murder of Jesse.

That relationship between the two and its consequences really hold the movie up and is he highlight of it all. However, where it falters is in its focus on the rest of the James gang which is completely uninteresting and heads nowhere. Those subsequent storylines could and should have been cut out and focused purely on Ford’s and James’ relationship and the end result would have been better for it.

The sort of audio book narration was also overused to a point where it’s adding nothing to the particular scene but is merely stating exactly what we are looking at onscreen and can infer ourselves. This isn’t a huge deterrent but it does get a bit aggravating towards the end of the movie.

Casey Affleck shows he can go toe to toe with Brad Pitt, making Ford the more interesting character in the film to his subservient behavior to his complete idolization of Jesse. Pitt is perfect for this role of Jesse as it plays to the celebrity icon status that James had at the time, which Pitt is very familiar with. While there isn’t a whole lot to work with besides that, Pitt does the most he can with it. Sam Rockwell is also great as Ford’s dimwitted older brother who understands the consequences of his actions at the end.

Roger Deakins. What more can you say. The best cinematographer around makes this absolutely amazing to watch, capping off a great year for him with No Country For Old Men and In the Valley of Elah. Dominik shows he’s competent as a director and a writer but adds too much cannon fodder to an interesting story, not cutting enough from the original novel.

“Assassination” could have been an amazing movie, it could have even been a masterpiece, if it only knew the direction it wanted to go. Being forty minutes too long doesn’t help and only continues the theory that in order to be an epic you have to be really, really long. It’s a shame that it couldn’t make the most out of the potential it showed.

Posted on 02/10/08 by: matt2648 12:38 PM