Excruciatingly dull

Rating: 3/10 (16 May 2009)

I dunno, maybe the fault is with me; I'm open to that possibility. But I just couldn't sit all the way through this one. I gave it about 2 hours (of its 160 minute running time) but it felt more like four. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is one minute longer than this film but it's highly watchable from beginning to end.
I realize the movie was perhaps more character-driven than plot-driven, but that's still no excuse for a film to be this lugubriously paced. Check that, there is no pacing in this film. It just sort of rolls along like the clouds that are frequently and lovingly focused on in this movie. As with rolling clouds, it's hard to get a sense of movement in the movie.
To be fair, the cinematography and the photography is gorgeous but it doesn't make up for the lack of anything interesting going on. Characters sit around and talk a lot and there are a lot of what I think are supposed to be menacing and enigmatic looks from Jesse James but which only really added to the overall tedium.
And here I thought ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST was slow. And it was, but it has absolutely nothing on THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES (and at least the former film had Claudia Cardinale to look at). WEST is actually 15 minutes longer than this film but I wouldn't be able to notice the the difference.
On a different note, it says on the Trivia page that "When casting for the role of Robert Ford it came down to Casey Affleck and Shia LaBeouf. Affleck eventually got the role, because LaBeouf was felt to be too young." Weird, since Robert Ford was 20 and LeBeouf was 21 at the time of the film's release, while Casey Affleck was 32.