Execrable tedium

Rating: 1/10 (18 December 2007)

I have to admit, looking at some of the other comments here I'm not sure if I and other reviewers saw the same movie. I want the mind-dulling 2:40 of my life back.
Moreso than even your average Hollywood movie, this picture is overlong. Sufficiently overlong, in fact, that it makes the overblown title seem succinct in comparison; it has one of the lowest plot-to-movie-runtime ratios I have ever encountered in cinema. (And at least a film like, say, Koyaanisqatsi, does not pretend to involve plot but is more honestly a painting in motion rather than a photoplay.) I did not come into this movie expecting a typical, shoot-em-up Western. But at the same time, some hint of charisma in the portrayal of Jesse James, some hint or shadow of how one of the most famous outlaws in American history *became* famous and even revered, would have been appropriate here. This movie relies on *telling* us Jesse James is revered and having a simpering Robert Ford hanging at his heels for most of the picture like a spineless puppy dog. There is very little in the character himself to suggest even past greatness or charisma. Russell Crowe's Ben Wade in "3:10 to Yuma" illustrates -- even, and especially outside of the actual shoot-em-up scenes -- the kind of charisma, the personal presence, force of personality, what have you, that make his gang fanatically loyal to him. There is essentially no trace of this from Brad Pitt's Jesse James. If the viewer's knowledge of history and the film's many narrative assurances weren't constantly reminding us that Jesse James was a Very Great Man, you certainly wouldn't guess it from the portrayal of the character here.
As for the portrayal of Robert Ford, it is overly kind to call the performance nuanced or low-key; it is so low-key that there might as well not even be any music. The character is weak, dull, uninteresting, and shows very little actual development. Essentially, he goes from being a lightly-regarded lightweight who retreats into his Jesse James fantasies to a lightly-regarded lightweight who is spurned by the object of his fantasies to a self-puffed up caricature of himself, cashing in on his notoriety (or rather, as the film might have us believe, the notoriety of Jesse James) before someone finally, mercifully ends his "story" and thus the movie.
As for the other characters in this film, they are sufficiently even more forgettable that I have literally forgotten them. Large stretches of film yawn, devoid of anything happening, great empty spaces more forsaken than the Western landscapes the cinematography so lovingly dwells upon. Main characters disappear from the screen for long periods of time, and their return is heralded by a lethargic second helping of yet-increased tedium.
It is true that some of the landscapes and cinematography are quite beautiful -- however, for around the price of an average movie ticket these days, one can instead go to the local chain bookstore and obtain a coffee-table picture book of lovely Western landscapes and/or national parks from the bargain bin. I would have greater respect for the camera-work and locations if they were either the backdrop for an interesting story, or the centerpiece of a more documentary work in which the open spaces themselves starred. This movie is neither -- in fact, the lingering shots seem to exist primarily to pad, both the movie's already-bloated runtime and the equally bloated and self-satisfied egos behind the excretion of this allegedly artistic work.
In the end, to me, a movie may involve skillful work or some measure of importance beyond the creators' self-importance, but if it fails to somehow intrigue me or draw me in or, perhaps above all, entertain me on some level, then I judge it to be a failure. By this standard, this picture is an utter failure. It bored me with almost perfect uniformity from beginning to the end to such a degree that the only dramatic tension I experienced was whether I would literally fall asleep in the theater from sheer tedium or simply walk out of the theater in pure disgust at wasted time and money. Sadly, I did neither.
In retrospect, I would rather have had three hours of my life painlessly and instantly excised from my lifespan than have my memories polluted with the remembrance of what is easily one of the most dull and flat-out worst movies I have personally experienced.