a big joke.

Rating: 3/10 (25 October 2007)

While everyone seems to have been thrilled to see that movie, i'll help the people who haven't seen it yet and are about to, by telling them not to. The 3 out of 10 grade that i gave is justified by : 1 point for the director of photography (except the lens-baby shots), 1 point for the acting (except brad Pitt who once again plays "brad Pitt"), and one point for ... some scenes that weren't so bad after all. Now don't get me wrong, i'm not the type of person who exclusively likes action movies, one of my favorite films is 2001 space odyssey after all ;).
"The assassination of Jesse James etc" is probably the film which title corresponds the most to the content. It is long. There is no surprise. And never during the movie i cared one inch about any of the characters. Jesse James ... he loves his wife and children, he, as the (dispensable) narrator says, is not in good health, he cries after hitting boys, he's human. OK... now that's a potential for good drama. except... except not, all i can see is brad Pitt being brad Pitt, overacting, and i never related to the character. Robert ford... well. You know during the whole movie that he's gonna kill him in the end and all you do is wait for that. I wish that the movie had had the decency to stop when he actually killed him, but it didn't, it went on, and on, and on. yawn. the music. you're not supposed to notice music in a movie. music is there to add character, color to the images. it goes in the subconscious. the music here is... well. the 3 same notes over an over, so recurrent that it annoyed me whenever it came. the rhythm. first scene, the train thing, bore at first, then exciting when it actually happens, very well filmed.. you think "yey, here we go, it's gonna keep on with great dialogs and the narrator will just stop talking"... but nothing of that happens, you keep going up and down on the yawn scale. the scenario. it's the scenario of a short movie. and the "plot" is accessible by a 1 year old kid. actually it's one of the first independent movie made for people who don't want to think.
the film is simple, there is nothing to discover (which is really annoying, imho), nothing exciting, sometimes irritating, sometimes kitsch, sometimes "please don't use that lens effect", and sometimes "wow i paid for that thing"
the director tried to do Asian-like cinema, a psychological drama, and it just failed. really failed. at least "Brokeback mountain" had a reason to exist. i see none for Jesse James. really, why did they make that movie ? no plot, no story (that can handle 2 hours+). incredible.