Amazing Ingredients, Saltless Stew

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2008)

I'm confused. This movie caught me off-guard. Because of its:

MUSIC -- absolutely haunting masterpiece

CINEMATOGRAPHY -- so beautiful, it hurts

CASEY AFFLECK'S PERFORMANCE -- if THAT acting doesn't win an Oscar .... Hollywood is DEAD; it's amazing to put it mildly..so layered, so convincing...it's really shockingly good;

THE SCENE WITH THE ACTUAL ASSASSINATION - it's easily one of THE BEST film scenes ever made -- just watch it again, from the part where Jesse gives Bob Ford the pistol as a gift, till the BANG and Jesse's head hitting the picture with the horse on the wall! Yes, it's overloaded with symbolism, and, yet it's a sequence that hits you like a hammer...

--- and then, the downside:

The movie is too long

It's a book adaptation and, boy, it SHOWS (in a negative way)

the Jesse character isn't even half sympathetic, real, and full-blooded, as opposed to Bob's - therefore the viewer doesn't connect with him

there are some boring parts

there's something more that prevents this film from being a cinematic gem ... I only can sense it, not describe it ... just something's wrong with it. Otherwise, it was meant to be (and COULD have been)one of all-time's best. But it's not.