Great cinematography, average acting, terrible storytelling

Rating: 4/10 (25 February 2008)

I like the soothing but mysterious and sometimes spooky feeling that brought by the excellent cinematography. The acting is alright. Nonetheless, I have some problems about the storytelling.
In most of the runtime of the movie, Jesse James is portrayed as a bandit who is highly wanted by the government by substantive rewards, who commits lots of robberies and murders, beats up armless train attendant, works over a young innocent kid, puts extreme mental and psychological pressure on his fellow gang members, kills people he is suspicious of although he has no firm evidence. All in all, he looks like a cruel tyrannical ruffian (except to his family). However, in the last ten minutes of the movie, after his assassination, out of the blue, he turns out to be a real hero, worshiped by the entire country, and his assassinator becomes the worst man in the world disgusted by every single individual.
This just doesn't make sense, especially to those who have never heard about the story of Jesse James ever before (like me). It is OK for the director to have his own point of view (obviously as written in the movie title), but it is not supposed to be suddenly indoctrinated to the audience in the last ten minutes of the movie without any proof previously shown in the movie. To me, this movie looks like a report of the psychological interaction between Jesse and his gang members, and Robert's assassination is just a natural instinct of human being. The movie doesn't at all convince me that he is a coward.
Besides, I have a pet peeve of too much narrative in a movie. I know it is a personal thing, but at least it manifests the director's incapability of the exhibiting some complex plot line, subtle emotion of the character, and so on. It is just a shortcut to avoid further thinking of a smarter way to organize the movie.