SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Nelson Strang Very slow and 'elegiac', which kind of fits the pace of the times, but it's also a meaningless visual tone poem in some ways, rather like a latter-period Terrence Malick film. Looks beautiful, as you'd expect from Maestro Deakins, and the actors do a really solid job, but where, oh where is the script? I couldn't find one and I had to sit through nearly 3 hours of this mess in search of it.

Osmosis Iron A very different western than most are used to, much slower paced and more talking than shooting... incredibly beautiful to look at, some stunning imagery and camerawork here! A "thinking man's western" if you will.. no, that sounds pretentious.. but it's quite hard to describe!

richardmeadfsu "There would be no eulogies for Bob, no photographs of his body would be sold in sundries stores, no people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortège. No biographies would be written about him, no children named after him, no one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in." This line not only concludes the narrative of one of the most underrated films of 2007, but wholly describes the weight of each line delivered in the best dialog-driven western ever made."The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is a film I have put off from seeing since first hearing about it shortly after its release in 2007. It wasn't until I saw "Killing Them Softly" this year, another film I thought was underrated, that I knew I had to seek out more work from director Andrew Dominik.I'm glad I did."The Assassination" stars Brad Pitt as real-life criminal Jesse James and Casey Affleck as the man who befriended and eventually killed him, Robert "Bob" Ford. The pairing of Pitt and Affleck was one I couldn't really imagine carrying a film centered on conversation. It wasn't until about 30 minutes into it I found how wrong I was; and by its conclusion, I was so impressed it even left me a bit shaken.The film disguises its true form — a biographical period piece — behind the beautiful sheen of perfectly framed shots and clever camera work. In a movie so focused on what a character is saying, it was surprising how well the center of attention was taken off the dialog and focused on the immaculate picture in front of you. In simpler terms, this movie is freaking gorgeous.Dominik frequently plays with camera focus and lighting, many times making all background blurry to extenuate a mood. Shots of James' face creeping in and out of focus he rocks back and forth in a chair are why I fell in love with the film's cinematography.From beginning to end, "The Assassination" is more "True Grit" than "Django: Unchained," which may seem standoffish for a modern western. Most of the film takes place in between the pangs of gunfire, trading in saloon shootouts and horse-back confrontations for fire-side chatter and tongue-out-of-cheek quarrels.But this doesn't mean violence is absent, only sparring. "The Assassination" uses violence as almost a release of the tension created as a precursor. Each time a pistol is drawn, it's to say a grim goodbye to a character the audience has grown accustomed to, which lends to the scene's impact.Both Pitt and Affleck's performances are stellar, with Affleck turning in a role that put him a step above his brother, Ben, in my mind. Ford comes across as a scattered man, with determination in his eyes, but deceit in his mind. This portrayal was enough to earn him an Academy Award nomination, which I thought was well deserved. James was also well put together by Pitt, putting to screen a hardened man foreseeing his end, yet not fearing it. Every supporting performance also was solid, with Sam Rockwell being the most noteworthy.The film's narration is also worth mentioning. Hugh Ross, who also narrated "The Age of Adeline," pushes the viewer's mind past what's on screen, while also giving the perfect amount of exposition and foreshadowing.While this all may sound great, there is one thing to consider: "The Assassination" is certainly not for everyone. Its 160-minute runtime is daunting, while its speak-not-shoot mentality will bore shallow movie-goers. But those who take the time to immerse themselves in one of the most infamous betrayals in crime history will walk away with the same feeling in their chest as I did.

masood abdollahi The movie "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is an indefinable movie creating extreme reactions after being watched. The terms describing it would vary from mesmerizing or deep to plain lackluster. The reactions can be justified if the traits of this iconoclastic work are considered. It's a western lacking the elements of western movies. It's a drama but at the same time includes few features of a comedy. Although the movie can be rightly identified with any of these genres, it's quite perceptible that limiting it to any of the given genres would be unjust.But the astonishing feat achieved by the director is beyond that since the prominence of the movie is revealed to the audience through characterization. The trap in which the movie shrewdly avoided being entangled was delving deep into the psyches of the characters and the transmutation undergone by them. The historical aspect of this depiction is just a façade of the story which is given out to the audience from the outset in the title. The movie succeeds in conflating the characteristics of the characters so as the cowardice of Robert Ford and the courage in Jesse James wouldn't have been comprehended without each other. It seemed as if the glorification granted on James was realized through the pusillanimity depicted by Robert Ford since he stood for the opposite of whatever the other one possessed. History has no way other than being biased on the side of the narrator for it is being told by a person. A person with a general tendency of the mind. This tendency can be modified but never eliminated since the narrator lives in a specific time with specific standards and moral codes. So, to put it in a nutshell, the narrated history can never be the real one because it is conveyed by the people already familiarized not only with the story but also with the idea of other people on the incident. The movie is well-aware of that and its attempt to negate the bias and didacticism implied in the story is twofold. First, the language used in the voice-over narration is literary and book-like unlike the everyday language of the characters. This contrast is an evident effort of the director reminding the audience of the storification of the incident. Second, the dream like scenes provided with blurry margins of the screen added to the elements of the untrustworthy narration since they were represented as memories. Masood Abdollahi