The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [2007]

See Larger Image	List Price: £19.99 Our Price: £6.48 Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Rockwell, Brooklynn Proulx Directed By: Andrew Dominik Average Customer Rating:
Audience Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Binding: DVD EAN: 7321900763738 Format: PAL Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Region Code: 2 Release Date: 2008-03-31 Running Time: 155 Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Editorial Reviews: 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 back-shooting 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, 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 mesmerising 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 well nigh-novelistic back-story 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 co-star 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
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Ponderous Comment: There are several adjectives that describe this film, and ponderous is the first that came to my mind after watching it. The second was pretentious. Whilst Brad Pitt gives a creditable performance other actors are wooden and wholly unconvincing. The film could quite easily have been edited down from two and a half gruelling hours to a more tolerable 90 minutes without losing a word of dialogue or even any of the "moody" shots that supposedly lend it its contrived atmosphere. Other relevant adjectives: boring, disconnected, and of course predictable, since we already know the ending before it begins. In short, eminently forgettable. Customer Rating: Summary: Absolute Rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Comment: Boring, immaterial, twaddle, absolutely boring! Everyone knows the story! Nothing new poorly presented, bad acting! Can Amazon please add the option of giving it half a star rating 8) Customer Rating: Summary: The closer to Caesar the greater the danger Comment: I am biased. I like Westerns more than any other type of film. Cant get enough of them. It drives my family mad. But it is an innocent hobby and I have not had to seek therapy yet. So has this time watching hours and hours of Westerns since I was a small child been of the tiniest use. Well I like to think so. In my modest way I feel I am actually qualified to give an informed opinion on them now. Which brings me to this film. Is it a good Western. Well yes I think it is. Certainly the best for a long time. Lets not go overboard here. It is not up there with "The Wild Bunch" the "The Searchers" or the unheralded "The Grey Fox" that starred the late great Richard Farnsworth, but it is a very good film and I applaud the director for his efforts. The recent Western "3.10 to Yuma" was fun. It lost a bit of street cred with Christian Bales one legged hero who should have represented China in the Olympic gymnastics competition. Yes fun but not serious competition. Oh and then there was "Seraphim Falls". Again a good effort but marred by that bizarre ending. Is there anybody out there who can tell me what it was all about? No competition there either. "The Missing" was a better effort but marred with the silly sorcery bit. No this film stands above the other recent Westerns. Why do I like it. Well I am also biased towards good cinematography and this film has that in abundance. It is beautifully shot. I like the way the film examines life within the outlaw fraternity. Jesse James in real life was a thug and a cold blooded killer, and that is how Brad Pitt portrays him. Warts and all. As is often the case in these gangs, then and now, it is survival of the fittest and the individual who commands most fear often rules. It is this fear that is so well conveyed. The cold blooded murder from behind of one of Jesses cohorts and the inevitability of it all has a truthful ring to it. Casey Afflecks Robert Ford also rings true. I love the scene where he is caught like the naughty schoolboy with all his Jesse James clippings. A real anorak if ever there was. The brief gunfights are spot on with one man diving out the window and others missing again and again from close range. Thats how it really was. Messy and nasty. Just like the gang. Pitt is actually good in the role which was a pleasant surprise and Casey Affleck deserved the plaudits he received. I would like to have seen more of Sam Shepherd who I never tire of. The film itself bears more than a passing resemblence to some mafia/gangster films where psychopathic killers rule the roost. "The Departed" springs to mind. The quote "the closer to Caesar the greater the danger" has resonance. Do not go to this film with the expectation of action packed fun. As you will have surmised that just does not happen, and it is all the better for that. It has a strange,brooding menace about it. You know the ending much like "Death in Venice", so it is all credit to the director to make a good film out of the material. The first good film about the brothers. Sorry Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda if you are up there watching me type this. I found the length of the film was not a problem. Quality goes the distance. A good addition to the collection of any serious cinema goer. Customer Rating: Summary: Mixed feelings Comment: One of those DVD's requiring that one must be "in the mood for history" to enjoy it. Not entertaining, yet compelling with a sad and unexpected ending. However, it conveys a sinister, but realistic dimension of Americanism => the power of sensasionalist press coverage and how easily American public perception is swayed by reporting. Tragically, it seems that following his death, no-one cared that James had been a cold-blooded criminal => instead Ford was turned into an outcast! One wonders how history (as dictated by the press) would have treated Robert Ford differently had he killed Jesse James in a shoot-out. Perhaps Ford would have been a hero? My advice => unless one is a student of American history, read about Jesse James on Wikipedia before watching this DVD. Customer Rating: Summary: BORING!!!! Comment: Okay i admit it, i only saw the first hour and that is the first time that i walked out of a cinema before the end of the film, i felt like asking for my money back. It was the most boring hour of my life, even the train robbery was dull. I was hoping for a western as engaing as Unforgiven or Dances with wolves, but nothing about this film held my interest, boring characters, a slow story and such a dreary look. More Reviews