The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

I saw this right on the heels of Elizabeth: The Golden Age -- a movie about which I complained that the visuals got in the way of narrative. Well, this movie is also interested in deliberate visual compositions but, rather than going for simultaneous look & story, they do them one at a time: 1) Narration while you look at stuff. Go ahead, keep looking. We'll wait. Done? You sure? OK. 2) Time for a bit of story before going back to 1. All in all, I think I prefer the "Elizabeth" way. At least it bored me for an hour less.

It's truly hard to spend this long in a film in which there's absolutely no one to like. I never felt any tension because I never cared if someone was in danger. What I was doing most of the time was wondering why on earth these idiots weren't better liars, why no one in his gang had killed the unpredictable Jesse earlier, and playing "ooh look, it's that guy from that thing."

C-