Eats Shoots and Leaves

Rating: 2/10 (28 March 2015)

I keep being amazed how much in the minority I am. There has been universal praise for this movie. It's slowness didn't bother me, not after the first 15 minutes. Why is it that the slowest movies need to go beyond a run time of 2 and a half hours?
Brad Pitt got upstaged in the acting department by Casey Affelck. His creepy smile and cowardly climax is part of history, destiny, and folklore. I've never found a modern Western gloriously lit and shot. If you're gonna portray the horses, the landscape as part of the cast, and portray women as things, you should make it a priority, resolution, or memo to pay close attention to the cinematography. Watching a drably shot Western is like watching a 3d film with one eye closed.
I don't have any sympathy for either Robert Ford or Jesse James. The film stupidly makes us want to take sides, only to wink to throw the message in our faces that we don't get it. Despite the sheer shine on the surface of the movie, I felt it to be a bunch of footage cavalierly strung together. Each scene where there's tension ongoing feels like an isolated short movie the length of a commercial, surrounded by the narrator giving us info that sometimes is needed, but never is interesting. I'm giving this Western 2 stars. It's far, far away from dethroning the actual masterpieces of the genre. Hope this review has been of help.