The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2007

Associated Press: Affleck does something remarkable here with his performance: He makes you feel sorry for this weaselly, whiny, 19-year-old kid, yet fear him at the same time. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The oddest major studio release of the year, and one of the most admirable. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Moseying along for 160 minutes, this revisionist western by writer-director Andrew Dominik makes a wan attempt to present the Jesse James legend as the dawn of celebrity culture in America. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The movie has an almost hypnotic quality; its spare and often beautiful shots seem to sear themselves into the camera's lens. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Pitt's subtle work -- relaxed and confident, yet seething with quiet menace -- is complemented beautifully by Affleck's enigmatic Ford, whose admiration for (and fear of) James distinguishes him from a run-of-the-mill scoundrel. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Mostly ponderous, despite the unceasingly beautiful imagery. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Hugely ambitious and not without moments of success, this indulgent 2 hour and 40 minute epic ends up as unwieldy as its elongated title. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: I wish this movie wasn't so purposefully elegiac and attenuated -- at times it's like a middling Terrence Malick fantasia -- but it's well worth sitting through. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Awesome splendor and a striking essay on celebrity reward those who brave the 2 1/2-hour run time. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The one thing you're not supposed to do during a Western is doze off. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A haunting retelling of one of the enduring outlaw sagas in American culture. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Assassination is contemplative and quiet, a studied film that is surprisingly engrossing, not to mention so handsomely made you can hardly take your eyes off it. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: This is a 160-minute art Western, and if you're up for such a beast it is a glory to behold. It's gorgeous, but rarely for the sake of mere gorgeousness, and languorous, but never listless. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: When Ford finally pulls the trigger, it's a relief as the flick's final ten minutes spin into actually interesting terrain Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: The Assassination of Jesse James is less of a Western than a mid-Western, which refers both to the film's urban Missouri center of gravity and its pivoting position between horse opera and backstage intrigue. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: It is no mean feat to make a boring film about Jesse James, but Andrew Dominik has pulled it off in style. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: ...an epic film that's part literary treatise, part mournful ballad, and completely a portrait of our world, as seen in a distant mirror. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: Writer-director Andrew Dominik takes his time with the story, but his languorous pacing allows tension to build -- and permits the actors, Affleck in particular, to add nuance and depth to characters who'll seem familiar only at first glance. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The look and feel of the movie are as authentic as any Western since Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller... Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a gorgeous snooze. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The extraordinary expressive performers, male and female; the haunting interior and exterior conflicts; the painstaking authenticity of the period detail; and the subtly modulated mood shifts all combine to make a modern masterpiece of an old legend. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's a view of the West beyond the myth that's worth enduring, if not relishing. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Everything about The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is longer than it needs to be. Its title, for one thing. Its duration -- two hours and 40 minutes! -- for another. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Parts of the movie are brilliant in a Terrence Malick-inspired way, but the lugubrious middle section is badly in need of the hand of a ruthless editor. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie has the space and freedom of classic Western epics. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford represents a breakthrough in the moviegoing experience. It may be the first time we've been asked to watch a book on tape. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: Who would have imagined that a biopic about Jesse James could be so boring? Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: It's a shame that The Assassination of Jesse James, a moody epic directed by Andrew Dominik and based on the 1983 novel by Ron Hansen, never goes much deeper than that tag line. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A better title might have been Jesse James in the Age of Pop Therapy. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Brad Pitt as Jesse James: Seldom has an actor been so perfectly cast. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A long, ambitious, fitfully rewarding movie. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It's a western destined to outlive the pronouncements of its own death, because it knows that death is only the first stage in the life of legend. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

David Fear, Time Out: It's Dominik's uncompromising, uncommercial vision and the two leads that give the story such a wonderfully wounded grandeur. Read more

Wally Hammond, Time Out: Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the story...of the moment in America when myth was murdered by mere celebrity and we were left, perhaps forever, with only the latter's meager consolations. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: ...heightened by a rare cinematic artistry that seamlessly melds a probing character essay with a lyrical Western epic. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: It's a magnificent throwback to a time when filmmakers found all sorts of ways to refashion Hollywood's oldest and most durable genre. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: A psychological chamber drama in which the wide-open spaces are geographic as well as mental. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: As this old and twisted Jesse, Brad Pitt is quite good. But the movie really belongs to Casey Affleck as Robert Ford. Read more