Jesse James

Saw "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" last night, it was an excellent film. Brad Pitt & Casey Affleck were both excellent, the script, sets & cinematography were superb. Also something you don't often notice in films , but which I feel compelled to comment on in this case, was the sound, not the musical score (though that was good too), but the actual sound effects, they really were noticeable and played an important part in the film.

Pitt's Jesse James was truly frightening at times and clearly paranoid. Affleck's portrayal of Ford, was at first just creepy, but at later on you began to understand Ford's motivations. It would be so easy to succumb to the mythology of Jesse James and create two-dimensional characters but this film avoids that pitfall; rather it seeks to explain without condoning either character. It clearly makes the point that James was a cold-blooded killer, not the Robin Hood figure of legend, while at the same time showing the normality of his family life, and placing him into the context of the post-Civil war world in which he lived.

Well worth seeing, if you get the chance.