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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [Blu-ray] | ![The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RfcXAyYqL._SL500_.jpg)
| Director: Andrew Dominik
Actors: Brad Pitt, Mary-louise Parker, Brooklynn Proulx, Dustin Bollinger, Casey Affleck
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $35.99
Buy Used: $14.99
You Save: $21.00 (58%)
New (36) Used (18) Collectible (1) from $14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  202 reviews
Sales Rank: 3131
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Blu-ray
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 160
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: 82972
UPC: 012569829725
EAN: 0012569829725
ASIN: B0010V60XE
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Previously Viewed rental product. 100% GUARANTEED! May have stickers on case or disc. Fast shipping! Book, Video, Video Game & Music titles all in one location! Discover Your Entertainment at goHastings.
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Product Description
Everyone in 1880s America knows Jesse James. He?s the nation?s most notorious criminal hunted by the law in 10 states. He?s also the land?s greatest hero lauded as a Robin Hood by the public. Robert Ford? No one knows him. Not yet. But the ambitious 19-year-old aims to change that. He?ll befriend Jesse ride with his gang. And if that doesn?t bring Ford fame he?ll find a deadlier way.Friendship becomes rivalry and the quest for fame becomes obsession in this virile epic produced in part by Ridley Scott and featuring gripping portrayals by Brad Pitt (winner of the Venice Film Festival Best Actor Award) as Jesse and Casey Affleck as the youth drawn closer to his goal?and farther from his own humanity.Running Time: 160 min.Format: BLU-RAY DISC Genre: WESTERN/COWBOYS UPC: 012569829725 Manufacturer No: 82972
Amazon.com
Of all the movies made about or glancingly involving the 19th-century outlaw Jesse Woodson James, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the most reflective, most ambitious, most intricately fascinating, and indisputably most beautiful. Based on the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen, it picks up James late in his career, a few hours before his final train robbery, then covers the slow catastrophe of the gang's breakup over the next seven months even as the boss himself settles into an approximation of genteel retirement. But in another sense all of the movie is later than that. The very title assumes the audience's familiarity with James as a figure out of history and legend, and our awareness that he was--will be--murdered in his parlor one quiet afternoon by a backshooting crony. The film--only the second to be made by New Zealand-born writer-director Andrew Dominik--reminds us that Dominik's debut film, Chopper (2000), was the cunningly off-kilter portrait of another real-life criminal psychopath who became a kind of rock star to his society. The Jesse James of this telling is no Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, and that train robbery we witness is punctuated by acts of gratuitous brutality, not gallantry. Nineteen-year-old Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks to join the James gang out of hero worship stoked by the dime novels he secretes under his bed, but his glam hero (Brad Pitt) is a monster who takes private glee in infecting his accomplices with his own paranoia, then murdering them for it. In the careful orchestration of James's final moments, there's even a hint that he takes satisfaction in his own demise. Affleck and Pitt (who co-produced with Ridley Scott, among others) are mesmerizing in the title roles, but the movie is enriched by an exceptional supporting cast: Sam Shepard as Jesse's older, more stable brother Frank; Sam Rockwell as Bob Ford's own brother Charlie, whose post-assassination descent into madness is astonishing to behold; Paul Schneider, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeremy Renner as three variously doomed gang members; and Mary-Louise Parker, who as Jesse's wife Zee has few lines yet manages with looks and body language to invoke a wellnigh-novelistic backstory for herself. There are also electrifying cameos by James Carville, doing solid actorly work as the governor of Missouri; Ted Levine, as a lawman of antic spirit; and Nick Cave, composer of the film's score (with Warren Ellis) and screenwriter of the Aussie "Western" The Proposition, suddenly towering over a late scene to perform the folk song that set the terms for the book and movie's title. Still, the real costar is Roger Deakins, probably the finest cinematographer at work today. The landscapes of the movie (mostly in Alberta and Manitoba) will linger in the memory as long as the distinctive faces, and we seem to feel the sting of its snows on our cheeks. Interior scenes are equally persuasive. Few Westerns have conveyed so tangibly the bleakness and austerity of the spaces people of the frontier called home, and sought in vain to warm with human spirit. --Richard T. Jameson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 197 more reviews...
 Western Art September 26, 2008
Westerns are constantly being reinvented. Sometimes just adequately. But sometimes, as in the case of this film, they set the bar for a whole new level of enjoyment within the genre. And ironically, (much like a Sergio Leone film) it's being done by a Director who's not even American! You'd think that we Americans would know best how to make movies about our own history, as well as within a genre that all but defined early American cinema, but Dominik (Director of the Australian classic "Chopper") aced this one. He's captured the flavor and feel of the Reconstruction Era (as best we can understand it today).
The whole film is a Western-noir of epic proportions. A Greek Tragedy that slices open and lays bare the reality of notoriety, gained at the cost of crime...the notion of romanticizing the Old West has never been so thoroughly destroyed, as in this film. No one is a winner in this movie. And for my money, THAT is what makes it so great. That disconnect that you often feel with the times when watching other westerns isn't present in this film. The characters are so genuine, so real, and the attention to historic detail in every facet of the movie is so meticulous, that you get a sense of not being just a mere spectator, but of actually being a silent, awe-struck participant, standing just barely and always at arms length, wishing you could reach in and halt the tragedy that is unfolding in front of you.
The film's BEAUTIFUL cinematography and musical score also help to gel moments of extreme, gut-wrenching emotion...like the build-up to the scene where Jesse gets killed, for example, which is so poetically rendered. At the moment Jesse says; "Don't that picture look dusty?", the score comes in, and this point in time is set in a mournful, heart-stopping way. Bob & Charley (Affleck and Rockwell) are so limp with fear, love, shame, remorse, etc., it's almost beautifully unbearable to even watch. For anyone who knows their history and what's about to happen, you feel as if you'd give anything in the world to somehow turn back the clock at this critical juncture in our nation's past. To somehow right the apparent wrong.
Casey Affleck is AMAZING as a squirrelly, mincing villain...he's really the ultimate stalker! Yet, by the end of the film, you can so thoroughly feel his own pain over what he's done, that you don't know whether to embrace him, or loathe him. His character was not an easy one to portray. Bob Ford made the history books, but not in the dire way he so longed to be remembered. Ultimately, he realized that. But it was more than just too late to redeem himself. He would be immortalized forever in the less than flattering die which he alone had cast himself in.
It's a long film, as some people have complained about. But for American history buffs...and for pure film buffs who enjoy movies that are more art than prepackaged, predictable Hollywood westerns...this film will adorn your library, much the way an original Russel painting might hang with prominence over your fireplace. If you love the genre and you want to be transported back in time, then by all senses, the film actually seems to end too soon! ;-)
 Movie: 4/5 Picture Quality: 3.5/5 Sound Quality: 3/5 Extras: 0.5/5 September 25, 2008
Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
VC-1 BD-25
Average video bit rate: 15.70 Mbps
Running time: 2:39:40
Movie size: 22,41 GB
Disc size: 23,94 GB
DD AC3 5.1 640Kbps English / French / Spanish
Subtitles: English / French / Spanish
#Documentary - The Assassination of Jesse James: Death of an Outlaw (SD - 32 minutes)
You have to watch it twice... September 21, 2008
I would like to say that I "hated" this movie or that it "was great." But neither is true. To get it, you must watch it twice. Because the movie works with underlayments of psychological interaction, you pick up much more the second time.
Don't be discouraged by the meandering beginning, which throws you into a cast of at-first-undistinguishable secondary characters. You know Brad Pitt is Jesse James and that Casey Affleck is Robert Ford, but the poor choice of throwing a bunch of other at-first anonymous men into the story early and randomly mars the beginning. (Plus, its nearly three-hour length demonstrates that the movie needed far better editing.)
The portrayal of Jesse James as conflicted and Robert Ford as hero-worshipper is surely a fictional amplification, but nonetheless interesting. Casey Affleck is sheer brilliance as a fey, admiring, sometimes brave, curious fan of Jesse James. There is a sort of homoerotic attachment. His skills as an actor are fully flexed in this extraordinary role.
Don't get too excited about Pitt, though. He's fine to look at and passes as an actor. Sam Shepherd and the others in the cast do a good-enough job--but not stunning. The cinematography truly deserves all its praise, as it's moving art on the screen. The exteriors of the train robbery alone were oddly beautiful and serene.
This hardly qualifies as a "western" though it has the old-time look to it. Very little horse-riding, shoot-'em-up stuff. In fact, it almost aspires to be a differently-flavored "Brokeback Mountain."
It's worth a look because it's such an unusual film.
Dull at a first glance amazing at a second September 18, 2008
When I began to watch this film I for the most part agreed with the negative reviews on this site. It wasn't exciting, the dialog was simple, and most of all: it moved very, very slow.
The first thirty minutes were not enjoyable because I didn't know the characters, scenes seemed random, or pointless. But ultimately this film builds like a crescendo into a stirring masterpiece.
160 minutes, but as I look back, none were wasted. The characters are flawlessly developed, and I really can say that I haven't felt such a connection or understanding for the characters in a film like this in a long time.
The level of understanding ultimately made this film extremely powerful. The acting and development were so good that the most powerful scenes hardly even needed dialog, and the music and cinematography were amazing. Just amazing.
This is not a film for everyone. If you are expecting an action packed Western, completely revise your expectation now, and look at this as an epic and emotional masterpiece. Many people may be bored to sleep, and others simply might not get it, but I promise there is a genius and a power behind this that will be worth it for those few that understand it.
Great Storytelling September 9, 2008
Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck give Oscar-worthy performances in this excellent piece of storytelling. I don't care too much about the real Jesse James (cold-blooded murderer, and certainly no hero), but I must say that Brad Pitt's portrayal of a conflicted bandit made me a little sympathetic. Casey Affleck's portrayal of the initially enamored, then calculating betrayer, was spot on.
I wonder why the director didn't include the fact that Charley and Bob Ford were initially charged with first degree murder, sentenced to hang, and then pardoned by the Missouri Governor. At 2.5 hours, I guess the director decided that the full story could not be told. Although I could have done without the 'squaw' jokes.
TWO ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP.
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