Gone, but not forgotten

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2016)

How do you even begin to describe a movie like this?
The fact that this movie is a true story only serves to benefit it. Most biopic films are held back by the reins of reality, like they're obligated to stick to the real-life formula. However, for this film, it works. It wears the inevitability of its history and its title like a badge of honor. It serves to be the journey, and it arrives at the destination with confidence. It knows that the audience knows what's going to happen, hell its based off of an American legend in the form of Jesse James, but its the last 25 minutes that holds the weight of the film. It still happened, but it relies on the fact that we don't know the fate of poor Robert Ford.
Technically speaking, this film is an absolute marvel. Cinematographer Roger Deakins puts forth some of his absolute best work, even making his own lenses for parts of the film. The landscapes are large and barren, making the characters inside them seem mythic. Notably, that of Jesse James. Every performance in this film is pitch perfect, but Brad Pitt as Jesse James may be one of the best casting decisions in recent memory. Jesse James is a legend, but he is no God. He's a volatile, paranoid, angry man, who shows moments of being kind, funny, fatherly, and overall shows a glimpse of a good man. But he's a human being. A deeply flawed man who murdered people.
But everyone loves him. And people to this day still do.
The film is a critique about the way we see fame. Or infamy. The titular Jesse James is a man impossible to form a solid opinion on. Robert Ford on the other hand is different. He's just a kid, that idolizes Jesse more than anyone. But he discovers that his legendary hero, is nothing more than a man. The film chronicles the last year of Jesse's life with his gang, and ends with Ford shooting him, and the rest of Ford's life.
The rest is something you have to experience. This movie has one issue, its a half an hour too long, and that would've been solved if Dominik was able to give his directors cut. I can say the last 25 minutes of this movie hit me like a sledgehammer. The score, the camera-work, the acting, even the story, it all feels so incredibly mythic, but the kicker is, that its real. Its a film that paints an accurate portrait of what we know. And by the end, made me never look at this story, history, or fame, ever again.