The assassination of Jesse James is based on the true events and retells the story of the famous outlaws' final few months leading up to death, and his relationship with his killer Robert Ford. The film is set at a slow pace, for example the speed at which all the characters talk is rather slow and you almost feel as though you know what will come next, particularly with the assassination scene.
The performance of all members of the cast was especially good, and I thought that both Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt performed well. The film also did a great deal for the career of Casey Affleck, who was much appraised for his role in the film. In the film Robert Ford has great admiration for Jesse James and is often teased for this. This leads him from wanting to be close to Jesse to eventually killing him to become a celebrity in his own right and for the bounty money offered. Brad Pitt plays the role of Jesse James as an increasingly tired and paranoid man really well, but I have to wonder if the film is telling the story as it were, then why does he take off his gun sling and just allow himself to be shot so easily? Yet even this scene is played well by all actors, however the speed at which it was played almost made me want to play it at twice the speed just to get it over with.
Although I am not a huge fan of Western's, this was a good, modern update of a well known story and all the quality that went into producing the film really distinguishes itself as a good film over older Western films. If there is one negative point I have to mention about the film is that it is rather long and at the regular talking scenes you nearly feel as though you could go to sleep with boredom. As a first time watch, the film is very good, albeit a little confusing and hard to follow at times, but watching it a second time would really require lots of fast forwarding through the most static parts of the film.
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Westerns - Director: Sergio Leone, Henry King, John Wayne - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Frankie Avalon, Clint Eastwood, Millard Mitchell, Lee Van Cleef, Patrick Wayne, Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach
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