First: this film has probably the best title of any movie in a long time (if not of all time). That was pretty much the extent of my anticipation for it over the past months...yeah, it has an interesting premise and some great actors, and eventually the trailer got me excited too, but mostly, it was the title. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It's classy and classic, like some important 18th century novel. It's also incredibly presumptuous - The Assassination is a title. The Assassination of Jesse James is a title. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? That's more than a title...no title needs to spell out exactly what the film's outcome will be. That word "coward" totally makes it. "The Coward Robert Ford"...the Coward, the Coward who murders Jesse James, one of the most famous outlaws in history. He's a Coward. Also, it just sounds really pretty to say. So know that I was never going to hate this film, because I can't get around that bias.

Now, the movie is, as you might have guessed, about Jesse James and Robert Ford. That's about all I can tell you because man, there's a lot of stuff to sift through here. More than a story, it's a bunch of like, little scenes. They eventually add up to something that you could say the film is "about", but a lot of the time it's difficult to figure out why what you're seeing is important. The film's 2hr40min long, and I gotta say, I don't think it had to be. I don't think it should have been cut up much, really, cuz there's nothing I really didn't want to see...but there's a lot of stuff that's just so harmless and yknow, there. Scenes of three or four people sitting there staring each other down, or laughing for what seems like minutes at a time, for example. Not...say, necessary...but why the fuck not?

Plus, those moments work pretty well to create tension, especially since there's almost never any sense of who these people really are. Conflicted, complex characters make for a lot of unknowns...if you don't know whether someone's good or bad, you'll probably be sitting through even the most "unnecessary" scenes wondering just what's around the corner (only intensified by that vignette-type structure). Is Jesse really just some crazy guy? And is he going to stab this guy, or hug him? Is Bobby really as awkward and out-there as he's often shown to be? There's a lot of grays in these people, so it's worth sitting through those scenes to try and get your senses about the characters on screen.

If you've seen the trailer for this movie, you probably noticed that it looks good. It does. You probably also noticed the really soft, dreamy focus in some shots, where the center is clear and the outer edges are all blurry. That shows up a lot...it evokes the faded and vignetted photos that one might think of when one thinks of the 1880s, which is cool, I guess. And it certainly makes for some really beautiful shots. But there's no rhyme or reason to when and why they switch to that style, since most of the film uses normal, crisp looking visuals, and whenever it did show up I found it more distracting than anything. I was taken out of the film because I was trying to make connections to the last shot to use it and figure out if it was supposed to be more than just a pretty face.

That aside, the film is technically outstanding. Again, very pretty. The score is wonderful (kinda reminded me of The Fountain for some reason...odd, since I'm not one for remembering musical scores beyond "I liked it" or "I didn't"). The sets and costumes and such are immaculate, and like any good period piece you'll probably find yourself paying a lot of attention to stuff in the background. And the acting is predictably awesome.

Brad Pitt kinda looks like Brad Pitt most of the time, but he really nails the character, in action and accent. Though he's one of the most dangerous men of the time, probably, you also really understand why people fall for him. He's funny, charismatic, kind. But he can also blow up and kill you. It's hard to forget either side, and even harder to make a judgment on who he "is." The rest of the support is fine, but the stand out is definitely Casey Affleck as Robert Ford. I really, really like this actor. (Also: check him out this weekend in Gone Baby Gone, directed by his brother Ben and the second best movie currently in theaters. Maybe third.) Here he's fantastic. His character's only about twenty and spent most of his childhood idolizing Jesse James. Now he gets to meet and hang out with him, and the way he reacts to it all is believable and admirable. His character, as I mentioned, is sort of weird..kind of a push over, meek little thing. He brags to his brothers when Jesse keeps him to help, but obviously eventually ends up shooting this man, his idol. The transformation to that point is subtle and I still don't know where exactly he went from one side to the other. It's a really, really good performance.

So anyway, yeah, check it out, if you're cool with 160 minutes in a theater where you will almost surely find yourself wishing for a quicker pace, a cut or two. If that doesn't sound appealing, I guess you can skip it, or wait for dvd and 2x the stuff that starts to drag.