Product Description

When the civil war ended frank and jessee returned to their family farm. A railroad agent after the brothers land kills their younger brother while yankee soldiers do nothing. This and other atrocities by the soldiers start them on their legendary life of crime in the west. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/18/2003 Starring: Rob Lowe Bill Paxton Run time: 106 minutes Rating: R Director: Robert Boris

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56959 in DVD
• Brand: Lions Gate
• Released on: 1999-01-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com
The story of Jesse and Frank James, the real-life robbers whose exploits earned them a Robin Hood reputation, has been portrayed in dozens of films that are more faithful to myth than to history. Only in the revisionist 1970s did the romantic shadings come off in a few genre-busting examples (notably The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid and The Long Riders). Oddly enough this 1994 feature takes more than a few factual liberties to restore the romantic portrait of the bank-robbing brothers. Four years after the Civil War, in a South crawling with carpetbaggers and occupied by Union troops, the hotheaded Jesse (Rob Lowe) and his clearheaded older brother Frank (Bill Paxton) take to the trail in a campaign of bank jobs, train robberies, and stage holdups while evading the dogged efforts of Allan Pinkerton (William Atherton) and his detective agency. Writer-director Robert Boris presents the boys as heroes of the defeated South, gentleman robbers avenging the pillage of their people by the railroad and bank concerns pouring in from the North and pursued by a maniacally driven Pinkerton on a personal quest for revenge. In the wake of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven this film comes off as old fashioned and a little naive, but the measured pace and the casting of country singer Randy Travis (who plays Cole Younger and narrates with a voice like molasses) gives the film, in moments, the intimacy of a ballad. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

OUTLAWS? How about defenders of freedom?
People who watch this movie will finally perhaps realize what was behind the James gang. These were not rebel raising outlaws who stole for fun, they were men who were ran off their land and ATTACKED by our own corrupt government, the railroads burned out and killed anyone who would not sell so that they may lay their precious track...so Frank and Jesse went to work.
Also introduces Pinkerton, the man who founded the Pinkerton detective agency and later on the secret service. He was a real JERK, by the way...:)

Fact Versus Legend.
There have been over a dozen movies based upon the life of Frank and Jesse James. Some have been historically accurate, but extremely boring and others have totally ignored history, but are extremely good movies to watch. FRANK AND JESSE falls somewhere in the middle.

The movie is really enjoyable to watch. It ignores much of the James' early years and instead focuses on their days as a gang after the Civil War. There are a few historical facts that are presented correctly in the film, but there are a lot more that are totally ignored or changed. Instead, the film is based more upon the legend of the James and Younger gang.

There is no doubt that Jesse James and company were bankrobbers who had a ruthless streak to them. Nevertheless, a person cannot deny the fact either that to many people in Missouri and other rural areas in the country, the James and Younger gang were heroes, Robin Hoods of the American West. Pinkerton asserted as much time and time again in his attempts to catch and round up the gang. Having been raised in a rural area not too far from the state of Missouri, I understand why people believed and still believe that in some ways the gang were heroes. In fact, I am inclined to agree. Therefore, this "romanticizing" of the Jesse James' legend isn't anything new. It's just the other side of the same coin and usually makes for a better story.

Worth renting
I rented this movie because I was doing a school report on Jesse James and was covering Hollywood's portrayal of the James gang. I ended up being very impressed. I think that Rob Lowe and Bill Paxton do a wonderful job as Jesse and Frank James. As a matter of fact, just about everyone in the movie are good actors. The shootouts are just spectacular (much better done than "The Great Northfield Minnesota raid" I might add) but if your looking for a accurate historacl account you might try looking elsewhere. This movie has a lot of the legends around the gang, such as checking passengers hands on a train, to determine whether or not to rob them, (soft hands--get robbed...calloused hands, meaning you were a working man,--don't get robbed) but almost everything about the Northfield raid is fiction. Here and there, parts of the movie are also made up, but Northfield was the killer for me. Anyway, if your up to a great western, try watching, you wont be let down, but if your looking for something out of a text book, try looking somewhere else.