Good things, it has...

Rating: 6/10 (16 February 2008)

I can't be kind with this film; it's been a very disappointing experience. As the world may know (or can find out with this and other movies), Robert Ford killed Jesse James, the famous outlaw from the West. Well, Andrew Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford" (already a bit pretentious, even if it comes from Ron Hansen novel's original title) is a long journey to the 'how', 'when' and 'why' of the fact, giving that we know the who.
I'm sorry if I'm being a little repetitive; sometimes movie characteristics stick with me for a while after watching them. The music of "The Assassination" is repetitive, as its structure and its beautifully shot sequences, sceneries, lights and use of colors, empty rooms, fast- moving clouds: the movie is just marvelously shot. Dominik's adapted script starts the film off with the kindness of telling us who the main character (played by Brad Pitt) is, as we witness a blurry screen.
That's the set-up for the structure, with a pleasant narration that not only becomes unpleasant with duration time, but at times also unnecessary. What are images for if someone's telling you everything you're watching? What good does a complete description provide for an actor if the viewer will be carefully watching if the character behaves exactly as what he or she heard?
Brad Pitt suffers from this in this film that Dominik wants to be a focused study on two people, but gets distracted with the 'bigger picture' and worn down by the narration and an excessive exercise of style. Roger Deakins' photography is undoubtedly the movie's highest point, but it looks like the director never knew when to say "stop", and Deakins, an expert on camera tricks (here greatly helped by Curtiss Clayton and Dylan Tichenor's classic and well chosen cuts to black; which work every time and are not excessive, so they create a balance), kept going.
I don't want you to misinterpret me about Pitt, though. His work here is very good; patient and contemplative, however unexpectedly confident and threatening in the stronger scenes. Even when his Jesse is the one who speaks the less, his speaking becomes meaningful. This is not Russell Crowe's elaborated study of silence in "3:10 to Yuma".
Actually, "The Assassination" is nothing like "3:10 to Yuma": in Mangold's film there's a redemption that's understood by the viewer after witnessing a series of events; here the movie tries to redeem a character leaving no space for the viewer's personal judgment. In a similar way, we sense the feelings and personalities of "3:10 to Yuma's" characters in one specific scene; while Dominik's movie almost obligates us to comprehend its two main creatures before, during and after the main events, when the truth is that we may not have figured it out.
Luckily, Casey Affleck's best performance to date helps us a lot, because the actor worries about creating someone we can empathize with. He presents a contradiction in his Robert Ford, who used to worship and love someone he ends up killing. The best scenes in the film are the little ones; the ones where you don't think anything relevant can happen. When Robert is watching Jesse's wife Zee (Mary-Louise Parker, one of the many underused actors in the film) through the window, he turns around and realizes Jesse's been watching him for some time. "You'll break many hearts", he tells Robert. Try to unveil the whole meaning of that phrase.
Of course there's plenty of good things in "The Assassination". Like Sam Rockwell's interpretation who, away from Pitt's stillness and Affleck's constant ticks, constructs a normal human being who worries about his family and friends, and does it with the naturalness that's characterized him even in his most eccentric roles. He's better than the other two and, seriously, he should be working more.