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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [2007] | ![The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ImjAQLjqL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Andrew Dominik
Actors: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-louise Parker, Sam Rockwell, Brooklynn Proulx
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £20.99
Buy New: £5.30
You Save: £15.69 (75%)
New (24) Used (11) from £2.63
Rating:  82 reviews
Sales Rank: 593
Format: Pal
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 155 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 7321900763738
ASIN: B000Y8G0OS
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: March 31, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk
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 back-shooting 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, 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 mesmerising 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 well nigh-novelistic back-story 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 co-star 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 77 more reviews...
 Absolute Rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! October 22, 2008
Mr. R. A. Wantling (UK)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Boring, immaterial, twaddle, absolutely boring! Everyone knows the story! Nothing new poorly presented, bad acting! Can Amazon please add the option of giving it half a star rating 8)
 The closer to Caesar the greater the danger October 3, 2008
Bob Salter (Wiltshire, England)
I am biased. I like Westerns more than any other type of film. Cant get enough of them. It drives my family mad. But it is an innocent hobby and I have not had to seek therapy yet. So has this time watching hours and hours of Westerns since I was a small child been of the tiniest use. Well I like to think so. In my modest way I feel I am actually qualified to give an informed opinion on them now. Which brings me to this film. Is it a good Western. Well yes I think it is. Certainly the best for a long time. Lets not go overboard here. It is not up there with "The Wild Bunch" the "The Searchers" or the unheralded "The Grey Fox" that starred the late great Richard Farnsworth, but it is a very good film and I applaud the director for his efforts.
The recent Western "3.10 to Yuma" was fun. It lost a bit of street cred with Christian Bales one legged hero who should have represented China in the Olympic gymnastics competition. Yes fun but not serious competition. Oh and then there was "Seraphim Falls". Again a good effort but marred by that bizarre ending. Is there anybody out there who can tell me what it was all about? No competition there either. "The Missing" was a better effort but marred with the silly sorcery bit. No this film stands above the other recent Westerns.
Why do I like it. Well I am also biased towards good cinematography and this film has that in abundance. It is beautifully shot. I like the way the film examines life within the outlaw fraternity. Jesse James in real life was a thug and a cold blooded killer, and that is how Brad Pitt portrays him. Warts and all. As is often the case in these gangs, then and now, it is survival of the fittest and the individual who commands most fear often rules. It is this fear that is so well conveyed. The cold blooded murder from behind of one of Jesses cohorts and the inevitability of it all has a truthful ring to it. Casey Afflecks Robert Ford also rings true. I love the scene where he is caught like the naughty schoolboy with all his Jesse James clippings. A real anorak if ever there was. The brief gunfights are spot on with one man diving out the window and others missing again and again from close range. Thats how it really was. Messy and nasty. Just like the gang. Pitt is actually good in the role which was a pleasant surprise and Casey Affleck deserved the plaudits he received. I would like to have seen more of Sam Shepherd who I never tire of.
The film itself bears more than a passing resemblence to some mafia/gangster films where psychopathic killers rule the roost. "The Departed" springs to mind. The quote "the closer to Caesar the greater the danger" has resonance.
Do not go to this film with the expectation of action packed fun. As you will have surmised that just does not happen, and it is all the better for that. It has a strange,brooding menace about it. You know the ending much like "Death in Venice", so it is all credit to the director to make a good film out of the material. The first good film about the brothers. Sorry Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda if you are up there watching me type this. I found the length of the film was not a problem. Quality goes the distance. A good addition to the collection of any serious cinema goer.
 Mixed feelings September 24, 2008
Johannes Frederi Van Graan (Finland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of those DVD's requiring that one must be "in the mood for history" to enjoy it. Not entertaining, yet compelling with a sad and unexpected ending. However, it conveys a sinister, but realistic dimension of Americanism => the power of sensasionalist press coverage and how easily American public perception is swayed by reporting. Tragically, it seems that following his death, no-one cared that James had been a cold-blooded criminal => instead Ford was turned into an outcast! One wonders how history (as dictated by the press) would have treated Robert Ford differently had he killed Jesse James in a shoot-out. Perhaps Ford would have been a hero?
My advice => unless one is a student of American history, read about Jesse James on Wikipedia before watching this DVD.
BORING!!!! September 24, 2008
Mark Prior (Kent)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Okay i admit it, i only saw the first hour and that is the first time that i walked out of a cinema before the end of the film, i felt like asking for my money back.
It was the most boring hour of my life, even the train robbery was dull.
I was hoping for a western as engaing as Unforgiven or Dances with wolves, but nothing about this film held my interest, boring characters, a slow story and such a dreary look.
 i dont get it..... September 10, 2008
C. Taylor
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
ok the acting from a couple of the characters (one being casey affleck) was very good, and its not the film i was disappointed at, it was the story line. i mean WTF?, i dont know what it was trying to do but it came across that the film was making out this jesse james to be a dangerous, unforgiving and one of america's most notorious outlaws. Whether that was to make you hate him/respect him i dont know but i was going for hate him, it even says in the film he murdered over 17 people and led numerous robberies on banks and trains threatening and assualting i dont know how many people. Then the person who finally kills him is hated and sent death threats because of it, and we're made to try and feel sorry for jesse james like he was some great hero....All i can say is is that the civil war must have had some Severe side effects on the people of america...i hope this is a very bad retelling of the whole story because if it isnt the whole legend of jesse james is an absolute joke in my opinion
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