Deconstructing Jesse

Rating: 3/10 (30 October 2007)

The finest titles, think "Damage" or "Misery", are revealing and enigmatic at the same time. This one gives it all away, and in more words than I've seen on a movie poster in a long time. The title tells the story. So all the beauty would have to be in the way it unfolds in image and dialog, right? Wrong. "Jesse James" is slow for the sake of being slow. One hour into the movie, next to nothing has happened. To make things worse, Casey Affleck (Ford) equates "good acting" with "poor pronunciation", while Brad Pitt (James) stands, sits, shoots and smokes with his mouth gaping in a most unfetching fashion, no doubt a misguided attempt at developing a trademark expression. Their blathering is so winded you keep thinking the bugger might well die before the claptrap concludes. Think "Snatch" on sedatives. Only Nick Cave's signature score and Hugh Ross' quiet off-screen narration tie this thing together. And there's the small reward of Zooey Deschanel's brief appearance as Robert Ford's lover Dorothy Evans. Her three on-screen minutes outshine the entire rest of this three-hour movie. "Jesse James" is so boring and pretentious I'm beginning to think of it as Oscar material. Say it ain't so.