Reviewed by David Levinson

STUBBORN and declamatory, like a tombstone, the title card to Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford doesn’t appear until the film’s end, shovelling the last 160 minutes into a single dry-retch of historical detail. But then again, like Dick Liddil (one of the “petty thieves” enlisted by Frank and Jesse James) says early on: “You can hide things in vocabulary.” In the case of Dominik’s prim mouthful, what’s hidden is trauma – the way Jesse, beyond being the merely assassinated, burned through Ford’s consciousness with such force that in the end he had to be put out. By reinvoking both men for the sake of The Assassination..., Dominik, who last courted celebrity killer Chopper Reed, isn’t hoping to penetrate the flame of their existence – only to stand close enough to feel its heat.

Reviewed by Darren Bevan

EVERYONE who’s been to see this low-budget, shot-on-handheld-in-next-to-no-time tale of a friendship between an unnamed busker and an immigrant girl has raved about it – and sadly I’m no different. I had been expecting very little and came out feeling like my entire world view has been changed from its usual skewed point of view, with songs in my heart and a silly grin on my face (something which anyone who knows me would say is a distinctly uncommon disposition for me).