Movie Review

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - I'm not sure how I feel about this movie. On one hand I liked it because the story was interesting and documentary like, but on the other hand it was long and boring and didn't flow well and I think it took me twice as long to watch it because I HAD to get up and walk away from it once in a while.

 

I'm not even sure what I was expecting the movie to be. There were a lot of scenes that were just kind of in there for no reason and the story line was so hard to follow that it made you thankful that the narrator popped in every now and then to keep the watcher up to speed on what the heck was going on. I liked the historical aspect of it, but that's about as much as I can say about the good of it.

 

This film follows the story of Robert (Bob) Ford for the 8 months leading up to the assassination of Jesse James and how he goes from a doting wanna-be to a jealous resentful killer. Sure Jesse James treated the boy like crap and belittled him every chance he could so sure I guess he deserved it. But Robert Ford killed Jesse James, not for fear of his life or to protect his brother, no, Robert Ford killed Jesse James for the Glory of saying "I killed Jesse James".

 

There are side characters and side plots but really those just confused me more then anything else. I don't know if they were really valuable to the plot because the volume level of the talking was so quite I had my TV turned up all the way and I still couldn't hear them. The music, however, was amazing. Such a moody, calm, tension filled soundtrack this had. I may have to see if I can purchase that somewhere.

 

As for the movie itself I would not recommend this to anyone. If you want a good western I'd suggest watching 3:10 to Yuma, Tombstone, Young Guns, or even Blazing Saddles.

 

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go cleanse my palate by watching Tombstone or Unforgiven or something... there are so many better westerns out there.