|
| 
 enlarge | Director: Andrew Dominik
Actors: Brad Pitt, Mary-louise Parker, Brooklynn Proulx, Dustin Bollinger, Casey Affleck
Studio: Warner Bros.
Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Rating:  211 reviews
Sales Rank: 13680
Genre: Drama
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 160 Minutes
ASIN: B001391VSM
Theatrical Release Date: February 1, 2007
Release Date: July 22, 2008
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 211
 Stunning acting November 2, 2008
Mario Moreno (Spring, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This movie features some stunning acting... but not from Brad Pitt. Actually, Brad is really good in it... but Casey Affleck STEALS the show. He sould have won the Academy Award he was nominated for. The movie is a little bit too long, but never gets boring. The pacing could just move along a little faster. The acting is so great though, you kind of don't want it to end. See it and then see "Gone Baby Gone". Casey Affleck will become your new favorite actor.
 Last Train to Nowhere October 30, 2008
Scott Rivers (Los Angeles, CA USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A disappointing art-house Western that languished on the shelf for two years. Despite standout performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, director Andrew Dominik's revisionist take on the legendary outlaw remains as long-winded as its title. The mesmerizing cinematography of Roger Deakins cannot redeem this 160-minute sleeping pill.
Probably The Most Underappreciated Movie Of The Decade October 12, 2008
Ellie---Penny Dreadful---Reasoner (Galway & Home Again!)
I can't say enough about this near-perfect motion picture. If it is guilty of moving a little slowly in some parts, and (the inevitable critical refrain when shooting a historical picture) taking liberties with supposed fact, then it more than makes up for that in so many other ways. I can only say I hope this team of actors, directors, producers and writers gets together again soon to make another film. This is history, filmmaking, biography, storytelling, and the presentation of the legends of Americana as they all ought to be, and shame on the Academy for slighting this movie at the (increasingly out of touch) Oscars. As along with its pitch-perfect narration and soundtrack it alternates from its slightly fuzzy dreamy quality to its pull-no-punches brand of stark realism, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford weaves a hypnotic tale as has little else I've ever seen. If anyone thinks to dismiss either Brad Pitt or Casey Affleck as lightweight actors, watch this and learn otherwise. I'd put this on the ten best list of the 2000's thus far. Congratulations to everyone involved in this great classic.
While slow moving, this film is excellent. October 12, 2008
C. K. Smith (New England, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This film caught me by surprise. The screenwriting is excellent, and Brad Pitt gives what may be his best performance ever as Jesse James in the sunset of his notorious career. The film is as much about morality as about a peculiar period in American history, a time of expansion westward which was conducted at great cost to many. I rather enjoyed the bleak yet realistically portrayed conditions of frontier town life and the typical period style shameless sideshow staged events that this movie profiles. While the title gives away the culminating event, by the end of the film, you find yourself sympathizing with the fabled outlaw, despite his horrific deeds. Mr. Pitt's performance is wonderful; his silences, body language and facial expressions are as well acted as his dialogue. However, be forewarned: if you like action movies, this isn't one of those. Quite the opposite: it is one of those slow as molasses unfolding story movies.
Western Art September 26, 2008
D. May (Santa Monica, CA United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Westerns are constantly being reinvented. Sometimes just adequately. But sometimes, as in the case of this film, they set the bar for a whole new level of enjoyment within the genre. And ironically, (much like a Sergio Leone film) it's being done by a Director who's not even American! You'd think that we Americans would know best how to make movies about our own history, as well as within a genre that all but defined early American cinema, but Dominik (Director of the Australian classic "Chopper") aced this one. He's captured the flavor and feel of the Reconstruction Era (as best we can understand it today).
The whole film is a Western-noir of epic proportions. A Greek Tragedy that slices open and lays bare the reality of notoriety, gained at the cost of crime...the notion of romanticizing the Old West has never been so thoroughly destroyed, as in this film. No one is a winner in this movie. And for my money, THAT is what makes it so great. That disconnect that you often feel with the times when watching other westerns isn't present in this film. The characters are so genuine, so real, and the attention to historic detail in every facet of the movie is so meticulous, that you get a sense of not being just a mere spectator, but of actually being a silent, awe-struck participant, standing just barely and always at arms length, wishing you could reach in and halt the tragedy that is unfolding in front of you.
The film's BEAUTIFUL cinematography and musical score also help to gel moments of extreme, gut-wrenching emotion...like the build-up to the scene where Jesse gets killed, for example, which is so poetically rendered. At the moment Jesse says; "Don't that picture look dusty?", the score comes in, and this point in time is set in a mournful, heart-stopping way. Bob & Charley (Affleck and Rockwell) are so limp with fear, love, shame, remorse, etc., it's almost beautifully unbearable to even watch. For anyone who knows their history and what's about to happen, you feel as if you'd give anything in the world to somehow turn back the clock at this critical juncture in our nation's past. To somehow right the apparent wrong.
Casey Affleck is AMAZING as a squirrelly, mincing villain...he's really the ultimate stalker! Yet, by the end of the film, you can so thoroughly feel his own pain over what he's done, that you don't know whether to embrace him, or loathe him. His character was not an easy one to portray. Bob Ford made the history books, but not in the dire way he so longed to be remembered. Ultimately, he realized that. But it was more than just too late to redeem himself. He would be immortalized forever in the less than flattering die which he alone had cast himself in.
It's a long film, as some people have complained about. But for American history buffs...and for pure film buffs who enjoy movies that are more art than prepackaged, predictable Hollywood westerns...this film will adorn your library, much the way an original Russel painting might hang with prominence over your fireplace. If you love the genre and you want to be transported back in time, then by all senses, the film actually seems to end too soon! ;-)
|
|
|
Web Design, Maintenance, and Hosted by K9Sites.com | |