The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Review)
Review: Poetic, breath-takingly beautiful movie, criminally under-rated.
I've seen this movie, like at least 5 times and own it on DVD, but you know what..I know that I'll be watching this movie until I die. I actually watched it again a few days ago, and noticed many things I didn't get the first times.
The first time I saw this, I gave this a 9 rating, y'know, incredible, but I noticed something..this movie grew on me as time passed, I found myself randomly thinking about it, and I found out an important thing about myself, and I think everyone else who truly adores Drama or Character studies as a whole..when I get shivers up and down my spine, I know it's a masterpiece. And in this movie, I got it every other scene.
I've honestly haven't experienced a movie like this often, where so many things melt together to create a perfect whole, acting, writing, soundtrack, cinematography, the narration my God (!), it's just all so flawless. Don't worry, I'm gonna talk about it's under-rating (is that even a word? Who cares?) later.
Let's begin with the first things that hit you as you play the movie: the narration, cinematography and soundtrack.
Weirdly enough, narration in movies is often flawed or weird, or somehow takes away from the whole experience, but in this case, it fit perfectly, with beautiful descriptions and "sentences" which have to be written and said, where you can see that it came from a book, and an excellently written one at that.
Then, the cinematography, which was done by Creative Genius Roger Deakins, my all-time favourite cinematographer, along with Emmanuel Lubezki, and his darkly vibrant and picturesque shots of wild, open landscapes, through glass and water, on the ground and grass, everything was just achingly beautiful.
The soudtrack I just don't even know how to begin to describe, with it's melancholy tunes and strokes, and an interesting I noticed last time, in a scene where someone gets shot, (no spoilers) the music turns even more emotional, as if the music itself was somehow disappointed in the characters, like a parent when a loved, but troublesome child does wrong. One of my favourite scenes in "Assassination", (one of many) was the train robbery scene at the beginning, where fingers of melting ice were just tap-dancing all over my spine, with the superb mixture of music and cinematography, unforgettable.
Now let's jog over to the acting department: An incredible cast through and through from Brad Pitt, to Jeremy Renner. Now, while I really did appreciate Casey Afflecks subtle, almost surgical, performance, I do think that Brad Pitt just stole the show with possibly his best performance since Snatch, and nails it, sliding from sociopathic criminal, to repentant and depressed Sinner, to loving husband and father with ease, in what I think is the most realistic, I wanna say(?), portrayal of the infamous outlaw. You always know that a performance is masterful, when you can't keep your eyes off the character, where you always want to see him more, and I haven't had that feeling often.
There are so many scenes which are just so poetic, so masterfully executed that I couldn't help but marvel, and so this is, for sure, one of my all-time favourite movies.
Now, you may ask, why did this movie get so overlooked? Well, I think there are several reasons. First off, I literally hate the Oscars, as most of the best movies of all time, on any list did not even get a damn nomination, so whatever.
But one of the difficulties it faced was the competition, I guess..2007 is, I'm pretty sure, probably the best movie year ever.. I mean just look:
No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, Zodiac, Eastern Promises, Blood Diamond, American Gangster, The Bourne Ultimatum, 3:10 to Yuma, you get the point..
But also, a common complaint was that it was too long, which just frustrates me endlessly..this isn't a teen, action flick, this is a poetic character study of Man, and his motivations and obsessions, and it should be treated as such. Honestly, though all real story-telling buffs like myself, who truly invest into a story and its characters, all loved it..Heck Common Sense Media gave it Five stars, and even WatchMojo listed it as The most under-rated movie of the decade.
Don't get me wrong, I like the marvel movies, I loved Thor : Ragnarok, and Logan is a masterpiece although admittedly not really typical Marvel, they're just not real movies with characters we understand and love or hate, they're just fast, funny action flicks, and that's fine, but it shouldn't be a the expense of other movies. Seriously, Avengers rakes in billions of dollars, and gets so overrated, because kids obviously aren't real critics by any standard, so real movies often get overlooked.
Anyhow, enough cynical criticising by humble me, all I wanted to say is that this Poetic, eerily beautiful Drama gets a full 10/10.
