One of the most important films of the decade, beautifully photographed and edited with a great, haunting score. Casey Affleck’s performance was such that even after watching the film many times over it never loses its exceptionally raw power and eclipses the rest of the cast, including Pitt himself, who although maintains his complex idiosyncrasies quite naturally and without any disappointment would have nonetheless meant far less without Affleck. The film is not really a western at all, but a psychological story set in that period. The theme of ‘celebrity’ vs reality is also very interesting and not often explored, (especially in today’s world of celebrity worship and reality tv) and how Ford becomes disillusioned by Jesse only to discover that by killing him he becomes the very thing he despised in Jesse—even more so and without any ‘effort’—ultimately suffering the very same fate ironically. Boy does that sound familiar…an allegory of Gen Y if I ever seen one.

I would have liked to see the full four-hour cut to find more exposition that was missing in some parts, not to mention more brilliant lighting by Roger Deakins but it was lucky, oddly enough, that Pitt starred in it or else the whole thing may have been shelved completely instead of the year or so that it was. I normally hate narration, and this had far too much in many parts to appease the studio but somehow works very well in the scenes following the assassination with Affleck and Rockwell. The attention to detail and realism is what separates the film from westerns—which are usually mythological and conservative—and our naive distortions of fame and bravery are enhanced by this realism. When we grow up and let go of SFX and testosterone, we can start to learn about life and ourselves.