KEY POINTS:
Herald Rating: * * * *
Cast: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Zooey Deschanel, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Rockwell
Director: Andrew Dominik
Rating: R13, violence and sexual references
Running time: 161 mins
Screening: SkyCity, Rialto, Hoyts
Verdict: The best western in many a year.
Everything has run a little long in this one: The making of it, the resulting film, the title which just about requires cinema counters to provide oxygen for patrons ordering tickets.
But fortunately this further retelling of how the old West's most famous outlaw got a bullet in the back is as deep and wide as it is lengthy.
True, its deliberate pace does risk saddle soreness - throughout hardly anyone (and that's counting the horses) in it breaks a sweat, though many end up bleeding and breathing their last.
What this Jesse James lacks in rootin', tootin', or shootin', it more than makes up for it in other ways that make this as strange and as captivating a western the big screen has seen in a while.
So far as revisionist westerns go, this occupies a place somewhere between Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. Its got period grit by the barrel and an air of paranoia and menace to go with it. But it's not just undercutting the James myth with Deadwood-style authenticity, it also delivers its story with a dreamy sepia-toned lyricism, helped by its lustrous evocative cinematography which is paired with an haunting musical score by Nick Cave (who turns up in singing cameo near the end) and Warren Ellis.
Against that backing come two shining performances. Pitt as Jesse James yet again proves he is much more than a pretty face, in another role in which he warps his screen charisma to great effect.
His portrayal depicts a James, who, even after his last train robbery can't find peace in his family life under an assumed name, while his increasing paranoia about which of his former henchmen might betray him starts generating its own body count.
His off-screen profile makes the story's contemplation of American celebrity - with the film depicting James as the media star of his day with Ford as his Mark Chapman - resonate a little deeper.
While Pitt may have won the actor's award at the Venice Film Festival for this, oddly, he's somewhat overshadowed by Casey - brother of Ben - Affleck's nervy portrayal as Ford.
Ford's shift from the starstruck teenager who inveigles himself into the James gang before eventually turning Judas to stake his own claim to fame is riveting.
However, allowing those characters to become quite so vivid means New Zealand-born director Andrew Dominik lets his film run and run.
That allows for too many long gazes across those endless horizons than is strictly necessary, a few characters with not a lot to do or say (like Mary-Louise Parker as James' wife), and an over-extended epilogue about Ford's sorry life after the dirty deed.
So no, it's not exactly quick on the draw. But that doesn't stop this psychological saga being a western of the highest calibre, or making Affleck an Oscar longshot.
