A good movie

Man, it seems that Andrew Dominik and Brad Pitt will never catch a break… Back in 2007, they made ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’(allegedly Brad Pitt’s favorite performance of his own) and even though it was loved by some, it was barely seen at the time. 5 years later, they come up with another project and, this time, not only it was again barely seen but it didn’t get much love either. Personally, I did like it but, I have to admit it, the whole thing was really flawed but let’s start with the good stuff. In my opinion, the whole thing looked great, with an often gorgeous cinematography and a very nice tone and style. Furthermore, the acting was just top-notch (Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Sam Shepard). So, what went wrong then? The first bewildering thing was, while ‘Jesse James’ was very long (it was supposed to be even 4 hours long but nevermind), this movie was not even 90 minutes and, to make things even stranger, Dominik chose to put some very long dialog scenes (the dialogs were fine by the way) so there was a rather awkward rhythm during the whole duration. I mean, the late James Gandolfini was really good in this but the whole section including his character didn’t add much to the whole thing. It is like the recurring political speeches in the background, it was a failed and really pretentious gimmick to supposedly add some sub-text to this weak screenplay. To conclude, I’m pretty sure my rating is too generous but in spite of its flaws, I still enjoyed the damned thing and I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Andrew Dominik’s work.

7/10