Day 43: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Idolising Jesse James (Brad Pitt) from a young age, Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), wants to get in his gang in order to live out the fantasies he’s had all his life. But everybody treats him like he’s not worth being around (he’s not) and Jesse doesn’t give him the kind of attention he hoped he would get. Feeling crushed and disappointed, he agrees to help the police in their capture of Jesse in the hopes that it’ll make something of him and he’ll eventually get the recognition he feels he deserves. He ends up killing him and still nobody wants to know him. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Robert annoyed me through the entire film. Grinning and fidgeting and scoffing for no reason. How can he expect anyone to like him or even care about him being around when he’s such a pain in the ass? I’d have shot him right off the bat, I couldn’t stop thinking that the whole way through. He is so completely disrespectful of everybody all the time. Scoffing during the Governor’s speech and then just scoffing right in his face? I don’t even know why he was doing that. You’re no badass and you’re nothing special, what are you doing? Ugh, I just wanted him dead from the minute he was on the screen ‘til the minute he was shot down.

I liked the scene when Jesse was shot. You can hear his daughter running through a poem just outside, you can feel the tension in the room, and it’s like everyone has accepted that this is going to happen. Even Jesse seems to have accepted it, or maybe he didn’t think Robert would have it in him when it really came down to it. Either way, he lays aside his weapons and turns his back on him. And then when his wife finds him dead, she just looks so disbelieving and completely devastated. I love when people can act grief really well. Not that I’ve actually felt grief myself, nobody I’ve cared about has ever passed, so I don’t know how it looks but how she reacted is how I picture it.

For some reason Zooey Deschanel is just thrown into the film for like 5 minutes at the end. And as a burlesque dancer? Really? She’s all skin and bones and dead behind the eyes, couldn’t have got anybody else for that role? Someone believable? Odd choice.

The film has confused me. It dragged on far too long and I did keep saying aloud, “Just. Bloody. End.” but I also feel like I enjoyed it, too. The story was interesting enough and the relationships were all fraught, so that part was good. I don’t think I’d watch it again though.

7/10