Six Cinematic Offences

Rating: 2/10 (19 October 2012)

A critic once said that watching "The Assassination of Jesse James..." is like watching a book on tape. That's such a brilliant and succinct description that there's not much to add to it. I'll try to enumerate the film's cinematic offences anyway, but forgive me if I don't have the original writer's wit.
1) A good movie should begin and end in sensible places. Not only does "The Assassination of Jesse James..." finish long after its ending, but it starts long before its beginning.
2) Actors should have an excuse for lending their talents to a film, but the only real speaking role in "The Assassination of Jesse James..." is that of the narrator.
3) The audience deserves at least one character they can side with. But in "The Assassination of Jesse James..." no reason is ever supplied as to why we should care about any of the characters, from Jesse James and Robert Ford to the sundry other gang members who get shot along the way.
4) Dialogue in a film should express to the audience the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Since it's difficult to care what any of them think or feel, the fact that they mumble all of their overwrought lines hardly matters.
5) A movie should seek to entertain its audience in some way, shape, or form. "The Assassination of Jesse James..." seeks only to put its audience to sleep.
6) A movie should be a movie, and not a narrated slide show. The story should be told with action, dialogue, and images, and not by a didactic voice-over. "The Assassination of Jesse James..." tramples this rule into the ground.
On the plus side, it's good news for insomniacs.