The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
By 1882, Jesse James was already more legend than man. Twenty years of dime novels, newspaper headlines and outright fabrication had turned a Missouri bank robber into something approaching a folk hero, and the circumstances of his death, shot in the back of the head by a trusted associate, only deepened the mythology. It is that gap between the legend and the grubby, paranoid reality that Ron Hansen explored in his 1983 novel of the same name, and it is precisely that tension that Andrew Dominik set out to put on screen. The film arrives at an interesting moment in the Western's history, sitting somewhere between the revisionist Westerns of the 1990s and the grittier, more contemplative takes on American violence that would follow. It is less concerned with gunfights and frontier bravado than with the psychology of fame, envy and self-destruction, which makes it a rather unusual beast for a studio release.
Dominik came to the project off the back of Chopper, his raw and unsettling debut feature about Australian criminal Mark "Chopper" Read, a film that similarly picked apart the mythology surrounding a violent man who had become a strange sort of celebrity. That background gives him a particular feel for this kind of material: the way notoriety warps both the person who holds it and the people drawn towards it. Here, the budget is considerably larger (the production, spread across several studios including Plan B Entertainment and Warner Bros., reportedly ran to around thirty million dollars) and the canvas is wider, but the preoccupation is recognisably the same. Roger Deakins serves as cinematographer, and his work throughout is among the finest of his career, shooting the Canadian prairies as a stand-in for Missouri and giving the whole picture the quality of an old photograph slowly fading at the edges. The score, composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, is mournful and sparse in equal measure.
Brad Pitt, no stranger to films that pick at the seams of American masculinity (his work in Fight Club being perhaps the obvious reference point), plays Jesse James with a coiled, unpredictable energy, projecting the kind of charisma that makes those around him simultaneously devoted and terrified. The supporting cast is remarkable across the board. Sam Rockwell brings a nervous, comedic energy to Charley Ford that prevents the film from disappearing entirely into self-seriousness, while Paul Schneider and a very young Jeremy Renner fill out the James gang with genuine weight. It is Casey Affleck, though, as the mousy, besotted Robert Ford, who gives the performance most people remember. There is something almost uncomfortable about watching him, a quality of raw, wounded ambition that the camera cannot quite let go of. If you have enjoyed Affleck in similar morally murky territory, it is worth a glance at Macca's thoughts on Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, another film preoccupied with grief, pride and the damage people do to one another in small, enclosed communities.
There is a specific, haunting beauty to the way Roger Deakins shoots a train robbery in the dead of winter, and it’s exactly that visual poetry that defines Andrew Dominik’s 2007 western, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
From the very first frame, you are enveloped in a breathtaking, melancholic atmosphere, elevated further by a genuinely cracking, atmospheric soundtrack that seems to seep right out of the floorboards. Dominik has crafted a picture that looks and sounds like a moving, nineteenth-century daguerreotype, establishing a mood of inescapable dread and quiet tragedy before a single line of dialogue is even spoken.
When the narrative actually gets moving, the psychological cat-and-mouse dynamic at the heart of the story is utterly captivating. Brad Pitt is fascinating to watch as the titular outlaw, leaning heavily into the mythic, almost ghostly persona that James cultivated during his final days. But it is Casey Affleck who truly anchors the film, delivering a deeply unnerving, weasel-like performance as the star-struck Robert Ford. Their toxic, co-dependent relationship is the beating heart of the picture, ably supported by a wonderfully grounded, albeit brief, turn from Zooey Deschanel. The character study is remarkably sharp, peeling back the layers of American folklore to reveal a deeply pathetic, paranoid reality.
However, I have to be entirely honest about the film’s glaring structural flaws, specifically its punishing runtime and agonisingly slow pacing. Clocking in at nearly three hours, the picture frequently forgets that a slow burn shouldn't actually freeze the audience in their seats. There are stretches in the middle act where the camera lingers just a little too long on a shadowy corridor or a quiet, mundane conversation, testing your patience to the absolute limit. While I appreciate the deliberate, methodical approach Dominik was going for to build tension, the sheer length of the picture occasionally tips over from atmospheric immersion into outright tedium.
This is a picture of magnificent highs and frustrating lulls, a gorgeous, deeply melancholic epic that demands a significant amount of patience from its audience. The stellar performances, combined with the unparalleled technical craft, make it a highly rewarding experience for those willing to surrender to its glacial rhythm. Yet, the bloated runtime and meandering pacing prevent it from achieving the status of a flawless, untouchable classic. It remains a beautifully flawed, deeply compelling piece of cinema.
Films like this one tend to find their audience over time rather than at the box office, and that has more or less been the case here. It was a modest commercial performer on release but has grown considerably in reputation since, the kind of film that turns up on best-of-decade lists and in cinematography retrospectives with reliable frequency. Whether it quite earns its place among the all-time greats of the genre is, as Macca makes clear, a question worth sitting with. What it undeniably is, though, is a film made with rare seriousness of purpose, one that treats its audience as people willing to spend time in the company of a mood as much as a story. For all its frustrations, it leaves a mark. Sometimes a beautifully imperfect thing stays with you longer than a polished but unremarkable one ever could.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2007 | Watched: 2026-08-11
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