The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

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!

There's a complex nature to this Western, but it is poorly thought out in respect to what the directorial team tries to accomplish.The title is as misleading as possible. In this story, Robert Ford is a mixed up kid, and any cowardice on his part is simply animal survival instincts. He worships Jesse James, who turns out to be a complete monster, void of natural instincts and natural motivation.Jesse's motivation is pure demonic possession, nothing more. The animal instinct of eliminating the weak from the pack is lost in him. He wants to eliminate, but he has not the slightest idea on how to judge what is weak.And truly it is lost in human beings, for whatever reason. There are actual people, and I'm sure most people of this era have met them, who have no motivation that is natural. They simply are possessed of demons, and are determined to play God with other people's lives, without the slightest natural instinct of how to do it.Such is the case with Jesse in this movie, and that much is depicted correctly, although the old History books make it seem that Frank James was the "God playing" brother, while Jesse may have been more likely to relent.Still, as depicted in this movie, that part succeeds. Jesse is a monster.However, for some reason, the ending indicates that Jesse was a winner because his corpse was paraded around and people got to applaud the end of a monster. Jesse wasn't there. Just his rotten corpse in all its humility, scoffed at by those who were glad a monster no longer lived among them.For some reason, the director-writer team seemed to believe this made Jesse superior to Ford, because Ford didn't have to contend with the notion that his corpse would be vilified some day. An odd thought that only makes sense to those brain dead sheep who think they do have the natural instincts of an animal, yet are as poor to judge as the Jesse of this movie was.Some hits, some misses.

The best Jesse James's history that l have seen by fair,mainly because is based on revised and research history of the brothers James,the movie starting telling the last train robbery in Glendale until the Robert Ford's death...it's a long history bring to light many true events about the American legend and how it's really happens...Brad Pitt as Jesse James and Casey Affleck as Robert Ford delivers what they sell...and the most important in this movie is about after Jesse's death,a period that never was told in a movie before.....a lot of IMDb's user complains about the movie is so long...the answer is simple how to tell the complex and detailed history if you don't have enough time...this movie surprise me totally!!!

You want a definition of pretentious, tedious, boring, prolonged, too far-fetched, dull, skewed, pathetic, silly and bland? Well, you got it - this abominable terrible monstrous long stew that was intended as a masterwork but failed sizzling and dies with a whimper. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a terribly vapid and languid film that crawls lazily and only gets a bit faster when the shootings come in, but alas, even they sound as if some boys exploded powder from their dad's bullets in the backyard. This lazy, idle, slow, plodding, yawning delivery is made all worse by awful scenes of some duels or deaths which all seem unnatural or staged. Brad Pitt? Sam Shepard? Sam Rockwell? Well, ven excellent stars can make horrid missteps like they all did here. My advice - never even think of watching this abomination of artless stew/