The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

I think this movie sat on my Netflix queue for at least 3 or 4 months before I finally got it. After receiving it I'm pretty sure it sat around my house for at least a week or two. Eventually, I broke down from the boredom of cleaning my room and decided to watch all 2 hours and 40 minutes of it. I think the reason it sat around for so long is because I was apprehensive about watching it. While I had heard some good things about it, the majority of the what was on the grapevine was negative a la, "terrible"; "worst movie I have ever seen"; "bored me to tears"; "my grandmother killed herself while watching it."

 

The first highly notable thing about this film is that it seems like every damn person in it is a super famous and/or super awesome actor. Doesn't matter how small the roll, it's probably someone famous. On top of this, the acting in this film is fantabulous. Brad Pitt, Sam Rockwell, and Casey Affleck especially play their roles delightfully. The roles played by actresses such as Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel are brief, suprising, and effective as well. In retrospect, my opinion on Brad Pitt in this movie may be a bit swayed. He plays a crazy person, and we all know how much I love when Brad Pitt plays crazy people (see: Fight Club and 12 Monkeys).

The movie is paced in a horrifically ungainly manner, and there are long stretches of silence punctuated by dialogue that often made me squirm in my seat. Parts of this movie will make you think you're getting bored, but you're probably not. It's hard to describe this movie because it's something that has to be taken as a whole. I wouldn't even go so far as to say I had a favorite part. It also has a narrator who comes in intermittently to fill you in on what has happened in the inexplicable time jumps that have just occured.

Despite all that, I really enjoyed The Assassination of Jesse James. As I said above, it's something that has to be taken in as a whole. If you only catch parts of it, or turn it off halfway through, or come in halfway through, you're probably not going to like it. I also recommend watching it by yourself so that there isn't anyone else around to distract you or interrupt it.

The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford gets 6 Beards.