by Lisa Hemsley

Created on: July 15, 2010   Last Updated: July 16, 2010

The Assignation of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a film which I had been meaning to see for quite some time, because it stars Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt plays the part of Jesse James.

The film is set in the 1880's in America where Jesse James and his brothers are wanted in over 10 different states by the law for all of their crimes and thefts. Jesse is a married man and has 2 children. His family do not know what he does for a living all they know is that it involves them moving from town to town very often.

We meet Jesse, his elder brother and the gang in the woods who are planning to rob the money train, the theft is successful and then the brothers decided to go their separate ways as the elder one does not want to live this life anymore.

Robert Ford is a great fan of Jesse and manages to get close to him, Jesse is very wary of him but decides he can help him. Jesse continues to do 'jobs' with certain members of the gang. We soon find out that a lot of rumours are being started about gang members apparently going to tell the law where Jesse is so they can claim the reward so Jesse goes to see each of the member individually and let's just say he sorts them out!

Throughout the film, Robert Ford is still quite close to Jesse and he is still obsessed with him, so when Jesse comes and asks him and his brother to go on a ride with them he is quite pleased, but also scared as he believes that Jesse is going to kill them.

Will Robert be killed by Jesse or will Jesse be able to evade the law and continue his thieving ways?

I think that last paragraph may be a bit pointless as we can all guess the outcome of the film from its title!

The film was extremely good and I thought Brad Pitt played the part of Jesse very well and was very convincing as a cowboy. He has the good but rugged looks down to perfection and the way he seemed so comfortable on his horse made the part so much more realistic. Casey Affleck who played the part of Robert Ford was also extremely good. I enjoyed the way he brought his character to the screen and throughout the film he always had a very nervous and shifty look which gave his character a bit more depth and mystery.

I loved the setting and the scenery throughout the film. This was all extremely well done and it all looked authentic to the 1880's. Some of the views we got to see when the men were out on their horses was really breathtaking, I especially enjoyed the views of the mountains.

The story was very good and I thought that it was all very believable as I did not know much about Jesse James before watching the film, obviously I had heard about him but nothing much more.

The film does have a running time of 153 minutes, which both me and my hubby felt was way too long. We both agree that the middle hour could quite easily have been shortened and condensed down to about 15-20 minutes. We did find the middle section was slightly boring and we were willing the film to move on.

The DVD which I have does not have any bonus material.

The film was produced by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Ridley Scott, Jules Daly and David Valdes. It was directed by Andrew Dominik. I paid just under £5 from Amazon for my copy. I do recommend this film to all, especially fans of Brad Pitt, but just be prepared for a quite boring middle part.

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