Movie review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Casey Affleck convinces as a sniveling, ineffectual, homicidal chap with identity issues.

by John P. Meyer

When we pick up the story of director Andrew Dominik's elegiac western with the long but oh-so descriptive title - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - the James brothers (Brad Pitt as Jesse, with the older, less-gregarious Frank portrayed by an ornery-looking Sam Shepard) are holding bandit court in a woodland clearing, recruiting new gang members for a train robbery. Frank insists it will be his last; he's had enough of peering back over his shoulder and is ready to settle into the comfortable and non-threatening miasma of town life.

Showing up to apply for positions on the holdup crew are some old James Gang regulars, including Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider as a charming backwoods rake), Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt as a socially inept romantic), Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner, the amiable hanger-on) and Charley Ford (Sam Rockwell), who for this heist has brought along his younger brother Bob (Casey Affleck). Bob, it turns out, has idolized the dime novel persona of Jesse James for years and is thrilled at the prospect of meeting and potentially riding with the legendary outlaw.

When we (and Jesse) first encounter him, Bob Ford is dressed in threadbare homespun, sporting a Abe Lincoln hat that looks like it's been run over repeatedly by a firewagon; he's ragged and graceless and socially inept, but Jesse - sensing in Bob the human equivalent of tail-wagging puppy dog devotion - takes a cautious shine to the rude fellow, christening him "stovepipe."

Following the split of the mediocre take from their train robbery, the outlaws go their separate ways - but Jesse asks Bob to stay behind at his Missouri homestead (where he goes by the moniker of "Thomas Howard") to help for a while with chores and generally hang out with the family. Mary-Louise Parker - late of small-screen "Weeds" fame - has a small role as Jesse's wife Zee, while his young son and daughter (Tim and Mary) are played by Dustin Bollinger and Brooklynn Proulx, respectively.

Kids & women-folk don't quite know what to make of surrogate brother Bob, but they clearly don't trust him - which should serve as an indicator for the rest of the family.

An odd thing about the James farm: Jesse keeps a pen full of snakes out behind the house which he raises for nutritional purposes - a fairly exotic choice of down-home country cookin', but one which the eccentric outlaw cultivates as much for the thrill of decapitating them as serving them up for supper: "I give them the names of enemies," declares Jesse, whacking off a head. (Bob cringes.)

It's Jesse's increasingly-odd behavior that begins to test the bonds of the outlaw gang and eventually leads to its violent dissolution. Pressures are mounting from outside sources (notably the governor's office) to put an end to the blatant ongoing thievery, leading Jesse to suspect that certain members of his on-again off-again crew are snitching on his whereabouts. And his suspicions appear to be justified, because he and the rest of the "Howard" family soon find themselves a bare step or two ahead of the law, forcing them to high-tail it off to more remote residential digs.

Thus begins a psychologically loaded cat-and-mouse game, with Jesse and his sure-fire six-guns paying solitary unannounced visits to the homes of his far-flung outlaw fellows. When he drops in on Ed Miller late one evening and suggests they ride into town for some supper, poor Ed goes all hinky on him - but then, Ed's a hinky dude to begin with, so Jesse might be making more of this than the evidence warrants.

After the Ed Miller incident, Jesse complains to Bob - who really IS complicit in backstabbing undertakings - that he's suffering more and more from "depression and derangement." It's clear towards the end of things that Jesse knows he's becoming a danger to those around him, perhaps even to his wife and kids.

This beautiful film profits much from atmosphere, artful cinematography and melancholy music box scoring (thanks to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis). Veteran director of photography Roger Deakins imbues the landscape with shadings of a vintage halftone print, going so far as to employ a vignetting filter for several narrative interludes. The filmic world we experience for the lengthy (but in no way tedious) 160-minute run-time seems totally lacking in artifice, emphasizing a naturalistic approach to the life and times under consideration; it's as if we were literally transported to the rustic 19th-century towns and farmsteads of the American midwest. Big kudos to the set decorators and dressers.

While the lengthy list of characters presented in the opening paragraphs of this review might appear cumbersome, it's the ensemble nature of the movie that lends a depth and weightiness to the proceedings: instead of relying on just a pair of strong performances in the title roles (which we do, in fact, get), we are treated to a small universe of nuanced characterizations. Singling out a supporting actor for particular mention among this group would prove an arduous (and fundamentally fruitless) undertaking, because they are all outstanding.

In regard to the leads: Mr. Pitt plays the legendary outlaw with the charisma and authority of the original gent. When he sits down at the dinner table - either his own or that of acquaintances - he occupies the seat at its head by right of ownership; when he issues an instruction it's done in conversational undertone, because any ramping up of volume or inflection would prove superfluous: he commands undivided attention just by his presence in the room.

The story of Bob Ford is basically one of hero worship spun terribly out of control. While his obsession with Jesse could on its surface be interpreted as homoerotic fascination, it resolves itself into something far more complex: he (Ford) has such a low perception of his own worth that he needs to enter the orbit of someone of more substantial personality in order to flesh out his own. By the time he comes to pull the trigger on his erstwhile hero, Bob's become the Judas to Jesse's Jesus, acting out his role in a plan he essentially had no part in creating.

If this role isn't remembered as the defining one of Casey Affleck's career , then I can't wait to see what he has in store for us. His Bob Ford is the epitome of an ineffectual character in search of that which he desires most and - by virtue of his nature - is most beyond his reach: the acclaim of his peers. The astonishing outcome of his cold-blooded murder of the beloved outlaw is that - for a while, at least - he achieves it.

MOST REALISTIC GUNFIGHT EVER: In a fever of life-and-death desperation, Wood Hite and Dick Liddil pull guns on each other from across a cramped attic bedroom and begin shooting: as the smoke dissipates it's clear that they've both emptied their revolvers without one scoring a single hit on the other. ('Course, that's not the end of the altercation...)

BEST CAMEO: James Carville as Governor Crittenden

EXPERT ADVICE: "Poetry doesn't work on whores." - Dick Liddil's advisory to the lovelorn Ed Miller

EPITAPH: "I been a nobody all my life." - Bob Ford