Narrated to Death

Rating: 4/10 (28 September 2011)

The problem starts with the title. Before the film even begins, you know what's going to eventually happen: Jesse James will be killed by Robert Ford. Since that's a historical fact anyway I'll let it pass. The real problem is what the title represents. This is not a film about showing you things, with images and dialogue; rather, this film will simply tell you things for the next two and a half hours, thanks to our trusty narrator.
We learn several useful facts: first, that Jesse James is missing part of the middle finger on his left hand. We can see this plainly, but I guess the narration helps. Next we are told that an affliction of the eyelids causes him to blink frequently. This is an odd one, since Brad Pitt (who plays James) doesn't blink all that often. In a later scene we are told that James suffers from paranoid delusions. To be honest, I had worked that out for myself. Later still we are shown a scene in which Robert Ford lies restlessly in a bed while Jesse sleeps nearby, and it's clear from the way the scene is filmed that Robert is thinking about grabbing the gun off the bedside table and shooting Jesse. In case you weren't paying attention, the narrator tells you this as well. Thanks anyway. Mary Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel appear in the credits, but their dialogue was replaced by more narration.
When the credits finally rolled I was left bewildered. The movie is 160 minutes long. Couldn't the narrator have told me everything I needed to know in a fraction of the time? Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, allowing a little room for a train robbery and some shooting and riding. In fact, let's skip all that visual claptrap and just let the narrator deliver his eulogy while we stare at a black screen. The funereal dirge courtesy of Nick Cave is optional. In the end, Jesse James wasn't assassinated: he was narrated to death.