Lighting and shadow, melancholy and pace.

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2008)

Andrew Dominik's 2007-western is easily one of the most haunting and beautiful western-movies made. Casting Brad Pitt as Jesse James was an inspired choice; he is a haunted man, and Pitt nails his performance with maturity as his underpinned emotions makes it one of his finest performances so far - but even more impressive is Casey Affleck's Robert Ford, a performance worth an Academy Award. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is a movie so beautifully shot that every scene is a jaw-drop; carefully structured scenes carries the movie with enormous inspiration as the slow-paced story creates a astonishing craft from the narrated opening to the brilliantly pulled-off ending. The cinematography and Dominik's eye for art makes this a poetic and beautiful western-movie.
This is a movie utterly focused on the beauty and romantic aspects of the Wild West, as it in the same time keeps its hands perfectly on its cold, gritty story. Eye-candy doesn't seem as the right word; but this is surely one of the best-looking westerns Hollywood has ever laid their eyes on.