One Of The Best This Historian Has Seen

Rating: 8/10 (29 May 2009)

Being an historian sometimes makes it hard for me to watch a film and just enjoy it without finding faults with this and that. This film is one with which I can find no fault.
More than that, it is "elegiac" -- poetry in scudding clouds and stunning sunsets, acting that ranges from raw to reserved. The cast is excellent. Unlike other films on Jesse James, this one does not glorify him nor does it focus on the exploits that made him famous. The movie picks up after the end of the James-Younger Gang in the twilight years as a harsh post-war world crashed down on the old time outlaws.
This is more the story of Robert Ford and how hero-worship turned to bitterness. He was the Mark Chapman of his day, driven to kill the man he idolized in order to take his place.
From all I can tell this film is historically accurate and well worth watching.