The Assassination of Jesse James - DVD Review

[Wayde]

Starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Shepard
Director: Andrew Dominik
Studio: Warner Home Video
Production Year: 2007
Media Year: Feb, 28 2008
Rating: R
Length: 160 minutes

Movie

While watching this movie I alternated between two extremes and in some ways I haven’t completely made up my mind which is correct. On one hand I felt dread that I was watching an utter train wreck of a film. On the other hand I loved this movie as an original look at one of the legends of the old west.

Its introspective narration gets you inside the minds of characters. Sure, the film is probably a bit overly-long and the pacing is deliberately slow. But in the end I think it worked. The narratives are often accompanied by a dreamy visual sequence with an out-of-focus trick of the lens. It forces a moody atmosphere to the film, not the action film of many popular westerns. This movie focuses on the collision course between Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) and Jesse James (Brat Pitt). The players collide through this movie in slow motion with their respective dates with destiny.

Ford is a nerdy, under-confident but intelligent young man. He builds up an almost homo-erotic obsession with Jesse James. The obsession (and homo-eroticism) was so blatant that I wasn’t sure where it was going and feared the worst early in the film. There were just too many bath scenes early in the movie so I feared it was going to be one of those proverbial movies with Gladiators in ‘em. I wasn’t ready to go there with the legends of the old west.

Thankfully Assassination of Jesse James stops short of indecency but certainly drives the point home. Robert Ford didn’t just love James, he wanted to be Jesse James. One memorable, early scene has Ford approach a mature and jaded Frank James (Sam Shepard) offering his services as sidekick. I didn’t realize as the scene progressed that this was Ford expressing his desire to be Jesse James. It was a clever way of conveying Ford’s unhealthy obsession.

As a western, Assassination of Jesse James isn’t for everyone. Its focus isn’t the swashbuckling career of Jesse James but instead shows us a Jesse James at the end of his career overcome with paranoia in the twilight of his career. Several scenes where James revisits his old gang are visibly difficult to watch. James believes there might be a plot amongst some of his former comrades to kill him and collect a reward.

As it turns out, Robert Ford’s reasons are far more personal than a reward.

The shooting of James was the culmination of a sort of dance of death. It became clear as the friends were preparing to set out on a journey together that one would have to kill the other. James presented the opportunity for Ford to beat him to the trigger.

The last act of the film explores the life of Robert Ford and his own subsequent assassination. I give nothing away about the story because it’s all told with documentary precision in the film and the film is arguably based on historic fact.

Video

480P
Widescreen 2.35:1

It’s not often I watch standard def movies on my home theater system lately. But for a 480P stretched across a large 1080P plasma it didn’t come off badly. My system has no super-HQV upscaling technology and the video looked impressive most of the time. The film alters between panoramic landscape shots that make it utterly obvious that you’re watching standard def. But many shots are indoors with lantern or candle light and they come off quite well. If there is a movie I could recommend watching in standard definition this one is it. The colors are nicely balanced and the films dreamy, poetic narration lend itself well to a classic cinematic soft picture setting on your display.

Audio

5.1 Dolby Digital English, French, Spanish.

Standard Dolby Digital soundtrack is all you get. Although there aren’t a lot of opportunities for the audio to really stand out, the soundtrack performs amicably. Nothing is going to blow you out of your seat, even the limited gunfire. The train robbery at the start of the film is probably the only real action sequence and the soundtrack reflects this.

Special features

There are no special features on this dvd. Nothing! Not even so much as a director’s commentary or corny making-of documentary. I can do without director’s commentary and making-of featurettes. This film on DVD represented a great opportunity for a short documentary with some historic background on the James gang.


Overall

The movie is memorable and largely succeeded at its aspiration to be great. The DVD presentation is overall very well done except that it’s devoid of any special features.

On the downside the movie was over long and some scenes are just uncomfortable to watch if not downright annoying. This might have been the effective film-making, nobody said watching a man (and his former gang) descend into paranoia would be pleasant to watch. Many people won’t find the film entertaining.

3:10 to Yuma this ain’t - but if you’re in the mood for a psychological western (a genre unto itself) or want some historic insights into the lives of Jesse James and Robert Ford you might not find a better film.