What was this? I attended the free screening tonight in San Francisco and, within the first hour, I was ready to pull out my own handgun and shoot Jesse James myself. What a long, drawn-out excuse for a Western...with totally irrelevant scenes and long supposedly poignant or extended staring and deep, what I assume were meant to be, soul searching scenes of men staring at each other somberly. Geez! Give me a break! A character study of Robert Ford, unnecessarily long and despairingly drawn out to almost 3 hours. Simply cinematographers trying for Oscar without making a movie for an audience! Do not go! Rent it, if you must, and forward through the majority of the movie.

Andrew Dominik?s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is a deliberately paced, stunningly visualized, and emotionally charged exploration of the early development of mass media celebrity in America. The film riveted my attention for two hours and 40 minutes, and has remained on my mind for several days after my viewing. Although centered on one of the iconic legends of the Old West, it is far beyond an updated reincarnation of the Western. It is an epic allegory about the development of the American cult of celebrity and the effects of this obsession on the individuals caught in its web. Roger Deakins surpasses his best work and pulls out all the stops here?intricately orchestrated changes in focus, dazzling use of light sources, careful manipulations of time, powerfully significant fade-ins and fade-outs, and shots through rain, snow, and rippled old glass?

VERY SLOW moving, the couple next to us walked out. Pitt is a pro but has too little to work with. I found myself looking around to see if anyone else was tapping their foot or fidgeting in their seat. Could of,would of, should of, been so much more.

I think that many of the people who didn't like this film were probably going expecting a western shoot 'em up ala 3:10 to Yuma. If that's your taste, then go see Yuma and skip this one. If, on the otherhand, you are looking for a poignant and thoughtful drama (never mind that it's a western) then this is the mivie for you. It's not that the movie doesn't have some violence (it does), but that ehre the gun play is not the important point. It's the character's emotional lives and society's reaction to them that is. A rich and interesting film this is; an action packed shoot 'em up it is not.

Director Andrew Dominik deserves some dubious credit for crafting a western which defies standard conventions. He relies on actors pondering, thinking and calculating their thoughts before speaking or reacting. While this is how people may act in real life, to do so in a film, the audience is left waiting for something to happen. Excessive artifice such as desaturated colors (red pallet removed) and iris effects which obliterate the edges of most of the scenes tends to distract after awhile. Casey Affleck's performance is one of subtle brilliance. Watching him being crushed by the disillusionment of reality coming head-on to hero worship is a rare treat. Affleck conveys more emotion in one motion of a furrowed brow than many 'stars' have done in entire careers. The ending is protracted and prolonged in spite of the use of freeze frames to compress the action. All in all, while an impressive film, it is not one which is for most American audiences.