Show Its It's tough to brave through indulgent Coward Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times Put in simplest terms The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a film whose reach exceeds its grasp Hugely ambitious and not without moments of success this indulgent 2 hour and 40 minute epic ends up as unwieldy as its elongated title Its It's a movie in love with itself and few things are more fatal than that That long title comes courtesy of Ron Hansens Hansen's novel about the death of the celebrated century desperado already a character in 30 films a book that so captivated writer-director writer Andrew Dominik and star Brad Pitt that they seemingly would not rest until they brought it to the screen In truth that 1983 novel is a haunting work that adds beautiful writing and psychological acuity to the familiar dramatic dilemma of why fellow outlaw Ford Casey Affleck in a much- much talked-about talked performance murdered a man he considered his friend While historians and biographers saw the size of the reward the equivalent of perhaps 1 I million I today 1 as the as-the the key factor Hansen envisioned a near- near Shakespearean tragedy of jealousy paranoia thwarted ambition and hero worship curdling and turning sour While some of that complexity has made it to the film The Assassination of Jesse James turns out to tobe tobe tobe be the latest in a long string of adaptations seduced by bya a books book's literary qualities only to learn leam the hard lesson that seeing is not believing that things that work on the page do not necessarily transfer to the screen What transfers best bestis is Pitts Pitt's intriguing performance as the outlaw king which won him the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival The casually charismatic aspect of Jesse James described by novelist Hansen as someone who ate all the theair theair theair air in your lungs and the thoughts right out of your mind is second nature to Pitt but there is also an anair anair anair air of unsettling mystery around James and as the fi f progresses ex expressions of darker things as well But despite getting first billing in the title this film is much less Jesse James' James story than it is Robert Fords Ford's and that thatis is a problem Not with Affleck's performance which is precisely what the character calls for but with the nature of the character Ford turns rums out to be one of the most putting off-putting individuals you never want to meet someone who immediately lives up to the way he introduces himself in book and film to Jesses Jesse's brother Frank Folks sometimes take me for a a nincompoop on account of the shabby first impression I make So shabby that Frank James Sam Shepherd at his orneriest speaks for the audience when he replies I dont don't know what it is about you but the more you talk the more you give meth methe e willies J While a character like this someone who all evidence to the contrary fully believes he lie is destined for great things can perversely fascinate in a book film is a different medium Spending hour after hour watching this callow leech so worm his way into James' James life that the outlaw himself says do you want to be like me or do you want to be me is close to torture Even worse is the considerable time spent with the rivalries and contretemps of the fatuous misfits and lowlife losers that are the best James can do for a gang in these last days of his career While the women in this film notably Mary-Louise Mary Parker as Jesses Jesse's wife Zee have almost nothing to say writer-director writer Dominik cant can't get enough of the painfully authentic period dialogue of his boys But with the exception of Frank James who has the good sense to leave the film almost immediately these feeble non entities come off as a whiny century version of the guys from Entourage or maybe maybethe the Dumb and Dumber version of Mean Girls With guns Making all this more difficult to digest is the self-consciously self artistic style that Australian filmmaker Dominik who made his reputation with the super-kinetic super action film Chopper has unexpectedly adopted Though cinematographer Roger Deakins has produced some remarkable images the directing style here is languid and overblown Dominik likely had something like Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs Miller in mind but what he has achieved is closer to the unfairly denigrated but still disappointing Heavens Gate Perhaps thel y about about- j frustrating g thing thing- The Assassination of Jesse James however is that a shift in narrative direction late in the second half stops you from writing off the film completely A more terrifying and psychotic side to James emerges and partially as asa asa asa a reaction to that Fords Ford's character changes as well and that combination creates a more focused dynamic As it is the films film's ending serves less as a triumphant capstone than a melancholy taste of what might have been if drama had not taken takena a back seat to artifice and indulgence |