The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik 2007) USA

In about a month or two this movie is going to come out on DVD and I highly recommend that if you hadn’t seen this movie you make an effort to watch this movie. As a student in the Film Festival Studies class I have had the privileged of watching some very interesting movies. The documentaries have stood out for me and The Assassination of Jesse James is another exceptional movie that is based on a true story. In fact I was so amazed by the story that after the film I did some research on the movie to see how correct the story line was. The Assassination of Jesse James is a film that is right on the money and correctly depicts history in the way it happened.

Brad Pit plays the character of Jesse James and as usual makes a great film being the super star he is. The film follows the life of Jesse James, yet the main plot of the film is what leads up to his death. There were a lot of plots and schemes to murder Jesse James, after all there was a huge bounty on him, yet he was in the end assassinated by his friend who shot him in his back in his own house with his children and wife in the other room.

To me the interesting part of the story is that after this Robert Ford played by Casey Affleck becomes highly famous for his role in the assassination. Yet ten yeas after Robert Ford murders Jesse James in the name of the law he him self is murdered by Ed O’Kelly. O’Kelly would spend ten years in jail but was later pardoned by the president and released.

Overall I found the movie entertaining and a highly interesting story. The death of Jessee James, The aftermath, and how an outlaw who was killed became instantly worldly famous was amazing to me. I am extremely happy I got to see this movie on the big screen and hope at the least get to watch it again on DVD.