By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Jesse James: Revisionist Western Undergoes Revision
When will we get to see Brad Pitt as JESSE JAMES?
And when we do, will the adaptation of novelist Ron Hansen’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” be as long as the book that spawned it? In today’s Los Angeles Times, writer John Horn reports that the current version — which clocks in at more than three hours — has “tested poorly” with preview audiences. (Please Warner Bros, let the running time be shorter by the planned Sept. 21 release.)
I’m not surprised that JESSE JAMES tests poorly. Many good-to-great and ultimately popular films flop with test audiences. One of the most common questions in test screenings is about audience expectations — and once an audience realizes that the subject is American outlaw/bank robber Jesse James, they think they know his story.
After all, it’s been told before, in ballad, book, film (THE NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID, with Robert Duvall as Jesse, and THE LONG RIDERS, with James Keach and AMERICAN OUTLAWS, with Colin Farrell in the lead. A very good TV movie, FRANK & JESSE, with Rob Lowe and Bill Paxton as the outlaw brothers, suggested that the elder, Frank, was the brains of the gang (Indeed he may have been: he made a deal to retire from crime, saving his life.)
The trailer for JESSE JAMES has been in circulation for nearly a year — when you see it, you know this movie’s no YOUNG GUNS. The movie doesn’t follow the gang’s early days, but the bitter dissolution of their outlaw ring, when the law, and even the public, was fed up with their kind. That’s closer to THE WILD BUNCH.
Dark and mournful in tone, we meet the man who once admired the king of outlaws, and who turned on him in the end. Though I’m a big fan of Casey Affleck’s, I didn’t recognize him. And the casting of Brad Pitt as James is pure genius. Watch this PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE biography and see if you don’t agree.