Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Westerns
Rating: R
Release Date: 5-FEB-2008
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1642 in DVD
• Brand: PITT,BRAD
• Released on: 2008-02-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 160 minutes

Amazon.com
Of all the movies made about or glancingly involving the 19th-century outlaw Jesse Woodson James, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the most reflective, most ambitious, most intricately fascinating, and indisputably most beautiful. Based on the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen, it picks up James late in his career, a few hours before his final train robbery, then covers the slow catastrophe of the gang's breakup over the next seven months even as the boss himself settles into an approximation of genteel retirement. But in another sense all of the movie is later than that. The very title assumes the audience's familiarity with James as a figure out of history and legend, and our awareness that he was--will be--murdered in his parlor one quiet afternoon by a backshooting crony.

The film--only the second to be made by New Zealand-born writer-director Andrew Dominik--reminds us that Dominik's debut film, Chopper (2000), was the cunningly off-kilter portrait of another real-life criminal psychopath who became a kind of rock star to his society. The Jesse James of this telling is no Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, and that train robbery we witness is punctuated by acts of gratuitous brutality, not gallantry. Nineteen-year-old Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks to join the James gang out of hero worship stoked by the dime novels he secretes under his bed, but his glam hero (Brad Pitt) is a monster who takes private glee in infecting his accomplices with his own paranoia, then murdering them for it. In the careful orchestration of James's final moments, there's even a hint that he takes satisfaction in his own demise.

Affleck and Pitt (who co-produced with Ridley Scott, among others) are mesmerizing in the title roles, but the movie is enriched by an exceptional supporting cast: Sam Shepard as Jesse's older, more stable brother Frank; Sam Rockwell as Bob Ford's own brother Charlie, whose post-assassination descent into madness is astonishing to behold; Paul Schneider, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeremy Renner as three variously doomed gang members; and Mary-Louise Parker, who as Jesse's wife Zee has few lines yet manages with looks and body language to invoke a wellnigh-novelistic backstory for herself. There are also electrifying cameos by James Carville, doing solid actorly work as the governor of Missouri; Ted Levine, as a lawman of antic spirit; and Nick Cave, composer of the film's score (with Warren Ellis) and screenwriter of the Aussie "Western" The Proposition, suddenly towering over a late scene to perform the folk song that set the terms for the book and movie's title.

Still, the real costar is Roger Deakins, probably the finest cinematographer at work today. The landscapes of the movie (mostly in Alberta and Manitoba) will linger in the memory as long as the distinctive faces, and we seem to feel the sting of its snows on our cheeks. Interior scenes are equally persuasive. Few Westerns have conveyed so tangibly the bleakness and austerity of the spaces people of the frontier called home, and sought in vain to warm with human spirit. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Grim and grimmer!
This film examines the last days of the notorious outlaw Jesse James. Pitt is competent in his portrayal of the brutal Jesse, who was paranoid and possibly suffering some sort of mental disorder. Pitt generates a little ambivalent sympathy for the character. But this is no glamorization of the bloody outlaw, quite the reverse, and his tendency towards sadistic, twisted violence is clearly shown. Casey Affleck is actually quite good in his role as James' murderer but the character he plays is such a strange man that it is hard to appreciate the performance.

This is another entry in the genre of dark, reality based westerns. The lives portrayed are so dismal and the story is so appalling it is hard to like this film. However, the grim psychological portraits create some interest; one can appreciate the beautiful cinematography filmed in Canada; and take pleasure in Pitt's usual top-quality performance which allows us to feel a little warmth for the evil man he portrays. I appreciate the artistry of this film but I would not like to see it again.

Sloooow Movie
Great cinematography, some of the best I've seen, however, the camera work is the movie's shining feature. The rest of the movie is extremely slow paced and almost boring.

Lyrical, Maddening, Beautiful, Tiresome, Unforgettable
How a movie can be so many things is a testament to director Andrew Dominik's talent and vision, as well as to his inability to get out of his own way. What is ultimately an engrossing study of two flawed men on a collision course with destiny is weighed down by slow pacing and a failure to recognize that the characters, performances, and story are so powerful, that you don't need to remind the audience that you're taking your time to showcase your own brilliance and pretension. The movie is a cinematic jewel, capturing images that are mesmerizing in their beauty and highlighting the darkness in our hearts. The performances by everyone in this cast are out-of-this-world, but especially by the rich complexity given to the tragic Bob Ford by Casey Affleck. Your patience is paid off nicely in the end with the inevitable, and poetic, assassination and aftermath. You will be moved and you will never forget this journey you went on. You won't be able to stop thinking about it. The movie sticks with you in a way few films do. You will come to appreciate its beauty and courage, and maybe you'll wish that such an unforgettable story had been trusted by its chief storyteller. Maybe the movie is supposed to be a paradox, just as its main characters. Jesse James was psychotic, caring, paranoid, smart, frightening, and faithful family man. Why shouldn't a gorgeous movie about the last days of his life be just as maddening...

The film is made for Blu-ray and should be appreciated on the format if you can. It's worth it.