The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Director: Andrew Dominik
Starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Mary Louise Parker, Jeremy Renner, Sam Shepard

An expressionistic western (gorgeously photographed by Roger Deakins) with intentions as extensive as the immersive visuals, Jesse James stars Brad Pitt as James and Casey Affleck as Ford. The title says it all, including a tendency towards overstatement that often hinders the forward motion of the plot. An ongoing narration drives the story, which finds dorky Ford worshipping James until the disciple grows to despise his outlaw mentor's twisted ways. I'd say the voiceover is the worst part of film if those sequences weren't so beautifully executed; it's a sloven example of telling more than needs to be told, but the images are intoxicating.

Therein lies the appeal of Jesse James: The sheer visual splendor of late-19th-century landscapes as a narrative unto itself. A mind-game that takes place between James and Ford in the final moments prior to the titular act feels like it's a long time coming, and since it's part of the mythology, the assassination is hardly a twist: Getting there is the journey the film establishes from the start, and we're given plenty of opportunities to study the faces of these morally ambiguous personalities as they contemplate the nature of their perilous existence.

To call the movie an epic is misleading, because the story in Jesse James is fairly linear and easy to follow. The sense of a large-scale operation feels, in this case, like the equivalent of a coffee table book filled with detailed palettes and not a lot of words, which makes it both cumbersome and breathtaking.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures