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GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 9/20/07)

New Zealand-born director Dominik's second feature resembles his 2000 debut, Chopper, in many ways. Like Chopper, it's a story of violence and the men who commit it; it's a story about an odd sort of outlaw celebrity and the people who are drawn to it. But The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted by Dominik from Ron Hansen's novel, isn't the oft-frenetic, slam-bang piece that Chopper was. This umpteenth retelling of a tale floridly but concisely summed up by the film's title proceeds at a very stately pace, hoping the otherworldly mood of its detailed recreation of the old West might seep into the viewer's bones. This viewer did, as it happens, fall under the film's spell.

(That spell, just to get this out of the way, is not what I would call "Malickean." Apparently all one has to do nowadays to get someone to compare your style to Terrence Malick's is train a camera on a field of wheat during a nice sunset and hold the shot for over ten seconds in your final edit. Dominik can hardly be said to be enjoying nature for its own sake in this film, as Malick frequently does. He doesn't splinter the narrative, or digress from it. He tells a story with a definite "through" line, as they say. But. He. Tells. It. Slowly. Which is entirely different from what Malick's up to these days.)

Assassination begins with some stentorian narration (the voice is that of Hugh Ross) describing the characteristics of the outlaw Jesse James during the last year of his life. Pitt's James, while not quite as much of a creep as the real-life model behind the myth was, does not cut a particularly romantic figure. There will be those who argue that any individual portrayed by Brad Pitt is already being romanticized aplenty, but bear with me. This Jesse James, aside from being pretty washed up as an outlaw, is paranoid, sadistic, devoid of conscience, and fond of playing mind games with his comrades/subordinates. He bears more of a resemblance to Robert De Niro's Jimmy Conway in Scorsese's Goodfellas than the noble, misunderstood James played by Tyrone Power in the classic 1939 Jesse James.

Robert "Bob" Ford, in a memorable, electrified performance from Affleck, is a callow young man who idolized James from boyhood, and "reckons" he can emulate James's mettle. In his first scene in the film, Ford presents himself, with geeky cockiness, to Jesse's older brother Frank James (Shepard, in a brief, chilly turn that proves he can still be a mightily effective screen presence when the spirit moves him), who pretty much cuts him dead. It's the first of many slights Bob and his cluck of a brother Charley (Rockwell) take on the chin as the James gang splinters in the wake of a nasty train robbery. Eventually Bob's resentment of Jesse — not to mention Jesse's seeming determination to wipe out the old gang (vivid characterizations from the likes of Renner and particularly Schneider) — gets the best of him. After doing his deed, he tours the country reenacting it on stage with Charley, reaping the dubious fruits of a relatively novel sort of celebrity. Affleck's wired kid becomes a hollowed-out, haunted figure who welcomes his own doom.

Roger Deakins's cinematography, inspired as always, captures open space with a majesty that's never corny; from the Missouri plains to snowy Colorado mining towns, the images have a beautiful bleakness to them. Some of Dominik's minor casting choices — politico James Carville as a governer, Nick Cave (who cowrote the score) as a barroom troubadour — are a bit cutesy and jar the spell of the picture. I should add here that many other viewers in the critical fraternity did not get as caught up in this picture as I did — in the pre-release notices out of the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, reactions have been so thoroughly and decidedly mixed that I almost wonder if there aren't two different films with the same name out there. I know that "see it yourself and make up your mind" is quite a thing to ask these days on behalf of a 160-minute film. But I suggest it nonetheless.

— Glenn Kenny