Reviews of this film seem to focus a good deal on the length and slow pace, as if providing a public service by "warning" an audience accustomed to hyper-kinetic editing and rambling steadicam shots to avoid such a film. Even the film's admirers seem challenged by the studied formalism and even pacing used here by director Andrew Dominik. I think he gets it just right.



90 minutes can seem interminable if attention is not paid to narrative pacing, but a good storyteller can make 2 + hours race by. This newest version of the oft-told tale of Jesse James is built slowly and steadily, focusing on the last months of his life and the relationship with his killer, Robert Ford. Each frame is carefully composed for maximum effect, and scenes are given the time and space necessary to explore character and context fully. The camera captures sensory pleasures; the textures of rough, period fabrics, the soft lamplight illuminating Missouri farmhouses at night, drawing the viewer into the past of the American mid-west in 1881 like a time machine. Stylized touches brought about by time-lapse photography and distortion lenses cast a dream-like gloss on the look of the film.



It is an approach that also encourages rich performances from a cast of fine actors. Brad Pitt uses his movie-star presence to express the overpowering intimidation and personal charisma that defined people's experience of Jesse James, while Casey Affleck charts Bob Ford's journey through adulation, betrayal and ultimately, his own tragic fate. Sam Rockwell, Paul Schneider and Jeremy Renner register strongly as members of Jesse's entourage that fall victim to the violence that surrounds him. Some good actresses are wasted in the underwritten women's roles, most especially Mary-Louise Parker as Zee, Jesse's loyal, long-suffering wife, but, of course, this is a story of men defined by the violence, not the domesticity, in their lives.



The director uses voice-over narration that seems to come directly from the novel by Ron Hansen, on which the screenplay is based. VO narration often backfires, creating a distance from the story, but here it helps establish the formal structure that bolsters the film. An evocative score by Nick Cave wraps the whole thing in a final, aural texture that firmly echoes the slightly surreal quality Mr. Dominik brings to the material.