Someone save us from auteur directors!

Rating: 2/10 (22 October 2007)

This film is the perfect example of why directors should stick to visual interpretation of the script and leave the writing to someone who really knows how to tell a story in a concise and engaging manner.
Film is not a forgiving medium when it comes to character development and this movie is no exception. I would go as far as to say that "The Assassination of Jesse James" is trying to be a novel rather than a film. It spends much too long trying to develop characters who, in the end, we can neither admire, identify with nor completely understand due to the obvious time constraints of the medium. With this in mind the entire pacing of the film will leave most movie viewers snoozing in their seats. I certainly caught more that just a few folks doing just that.
To put it bluntly Dominik seems to have made this film for the benefit of other 'artists' and not for the movie-going public. The plot is circuitous, the cinematography breathtaking yet pedantic and the individual scenes anti-climactic. I'm sure that the film will be heralded as a masterpiece by critics and other 'artistes' that consider the rest of us to be cretinous 'Philistines'. To the general movie-going public it will be neither exciting, intriguing or particularly enjoyable. I would recommend "Jesse James" only to people who find movies such as 'The Thin Red Line' or 'Citizen Kane' compelling. Everyone else will see it as a flop (and deservedly so).