The Assassination of Jesse James

Late to the party but we just watched this, this weekend. First reaction – way too long, not very good, kind of odd BUT …

It is a GREAT LOOKING movie. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer did some really neat things. Lots of interesting shots and angles. Beautiful landscapes and scenery. I enjoyed these parts a lot.

Soundtrack – odd juxtaposition in that the score is nothing like what I’d expect from a sort-of western (what else would you call a movie about Jesse James?) set in the 1880s in Missouri. But it sounds really good also.

When you have lots of narration, which this movie does, it may mean the screenplay was lacking and they had to say all this stuff they couldn’t show (If they had tried to show it all, this movie would have gone on forever!) but I really liked the narrator – Hugh Ross. No idea what else he has done or who he is but I liked his style and diction.

For a bigger budget movie, I thought most of the gun-shots sounded like toy cap guns. Who knows – maybe shells in the late 1800s didn’t have much gunpowder but whenever there was gunfire, it sounded small No ooomph.

And one scene of gunfire was strange. Two guys in a bedroom firing away at each other –we are talking almost point-blank range and when all is said and done, each of them barely wounds the other? And these guys rode with Jesse James?

And Brad Pitt? He’s certainly not afraid to shed his pretty boy image. Since Jesse was killed at the young age of 34 – maybe someone younger should have played this part. But I'll give him credit for a pretty convincing slam against the wall when he got shot.

If you want to watch something different; that it is. But be prepared to invest a chunk of time.