Awesome and spectacular Western with good performances from Pitt and Affleck

Rating: 7/10 (27 July 2009)

This is a sprawling and glamorous Western but overlong. Packs colorful scenarios, slow-moving pace and slick edition. Wonderful cinematography by Roger Deakins and atmospheric musical score by Nick Cave. The motion picture is well realized by Andrew Dominik who displays enough off-beat touches to keep things interesting.
Adding more details over the largely described on the movie, deeds happened of the following way : Later events led disaster on 6 September 1876 in which Jesse(Brad Pitt) and Frank James(Sam Shepard) with three younger Younger brothers attempted a bank robbery at Northfield , Minnesota, only Jesse and Frank got clean away to live quietly for several years under assumed names , Jesse as J.D. Howard and Frank as B.J. Woodson. In 1879 they robbed a train and another one in 1881, in the latter crime a conductor and a passenger were killed. Governor of Missouri raised rewards of 10.000 dollars each for the James boys, dead or alive. On 3 April 1882 Bob Ford, a new member , treacherously shot Jessse dead in the back of the head in his home at St Joseph, Missouri where Jesse was living along with his wife(Mary Louise Parker) and sons. Frank surrendered six months later , he stood trial and was acquitted. He gave up his criminal ways and lived a respectable life until he died aged seventy-two in 1915. Robert Ford(1861-92) made his mark on the history as the man who killed Jesse James. It was his claim to fame. Bob(Ben Affleck) and his brother Charlie (Sam Rockwell) were new recruits to Jesse's gang in 1881 and when a reward was offered for Jesse and Frank, dead or alive, the brothers Ford made a secret agreement with Governor to assassinate the outlaw. For the rest of his life Ford was reviled for the manner in which he had killed Jesse , whose gravestone bore the words: ¨Murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here¨. Forced by public opinion to leave Missouri , Bob wandered through the old West , taunted by the words of the popular song : ¨The dirty little coward, who was shot Mr Howard, has laid poor Jesse in his grave¨ .
Others films about this legendary outlaw are : The classic version (1939) titled ¨Jesse James(1939)¨ with Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda, ¨The return of Frank james(1950) by Fritz Lang with Henry Fonda ; ¨I shot Jesse James¨by Samuel Fuller with John Ireland as Bob Ford ; ¨Jesse James vs the Dalton(1954)¨ by William Castle with John Ireland, ¨The true story of Jesse James¨ by Nicholas Ray with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter.