MoviesMovies |
Things to do in LA...
| |
Outlaw comes to life - but oh, so slowlyOn September 21, 2007 'Jesse James' flick drags beautifully
BY BOB STRAUSS
FILM CRITIC "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" does many of the things that I often wish other movies did half as well. The acting, especially by leads Brad Pitt (Jesse) and Casey Affleck (Ford), is masterful and multifaceted, totally naturalistic yet bursting with magnetic star quality. Every frame of Roger Deakins' cinematography could be, well, framed; it looks like austere art that could actually have come from the 1880s Midwest. Plus, it perfectly complements a movie that is all about looking, listening, telling stories; in other words, that is cinematic at its very essence. And as far as I can tell, this is one film based on true events that went the extra mile to be as historically accurate as possible, and in a way that's intelligently informed (rather than, as is more common, anachronistically destabilized) by modern psychological insight. All of which should make "Assassination" the great, thoughtful Western film lovers are always longing for. But it isn't. And the reasons why are so integral a part of what this stately work is, that there's no sense suggesting that any of it should have been done differently. (Although attempts were made; the movie has been the object of more than a year's worth of post-production wrangling between producers, studio and adapter/director Andrew Dominik). To put it most bluntly, the thing is just too long and too slow. Such criticism comes loaded with caveats, though. It can be argued that everything took longer in the 19th century, so the pacing actually makes the movie more accurate. Or how about this one: Without the deliberate unfolding, any number of marvelous performance moments would ring glib or hollow. But those are just excuses, because in the end, "Assassination" really doesn't tell us anything that hasn't been written 100 times before about America's most celebrated outlaw or the friend who shot him in the back. And after sitting through more than 2 1/2 gorgeously glacial hours with very little action, you need some kind of extra-special revelation. But back to the good stuff: Pitt embodies Jesse's paranoid, intimidating and still powerfully charismatic decline commandingly. Abandoned by his brother, Frank (an underused and miscast - he's old enough to be Pitt's father, and looks it - Sam Shepard) and with only a few incompetents left in his once-fearsome gang, Jesse is eaten up by fear of betrayal. Rightly so, as it turns out, but that doesn't excuse the sadistic way that he messes with the minds of his remaining subordinates - while still, like the star he is, expecting them to love him. If ever there were a role fellow Missourian Pitt was born to play ... Alternately cocky and craven, Affleck's Ford is a hero worshipper undone by the thing he longed for most: getting to know the real man that he grew up idolizing. The movie, which Dominik adapted from Ron Hansen's well-regarded historical novel, offers a variety of reasons why the kid had to turn against his master. But Affleck so carefully layers Ford's growing resentment to Jesse's unpredictable abuse that, long before he works up the courage to pull the trigger, we wonder how he can stand just being in the same room with the deranged legend. Dominik's only other feature film was the Australian criminal biopic "Chopper." Obviously, the filmmaker has a deep, driving interest in self-mythologizing sociopaths. "Assassination" gave him all the time and resources he could want to indulge that dark curiosity. And indulge he did, with an artist's passion but, also, an obsessive's ponderousness. Bob Strauss (818) 713-3687 bob.strauss@dailynews.com review> THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD >R: violence, sex, language, children in jeopardy.
 
 |
||
