My Angle: I like westerns.
Kid Friendly: No its violent among other things.
Spiritual Issues: Preacher’s Kids gone bad? Original sin.
I’m a western buff. I read every book by Louis L’amour by the time I was 18 (that’s a lot of books). So I like to check out a few westerns from time to time. I’m not even sure this movie should be called a western. First of all it’s slow (I watched the movie in three sittings); second of all it’s more of a psychological portrait of two sick men. I have to say I spent most of the movie wondering “is any of this true to the real historical record?” For instance both James and Ford were preachers kids - Jesse James was a church going Presbyterian! How decent and in order is that (that's an inside joke)?
None of the characters in this movie are very likeable. They’re all outlaws and even the “good guys” are met through the lenses of the outlaw’s worldview so they are suspect at best. Some of the lessons to be learned are that: life in the “good ol’ days” wasn’t all that good; people, without a ordered society, are prone to evil; history isn’t always that kind or that accurate.
At the end of the movie, I don’t think I was enriched by anything in it. I find movies of this nature to be unrewarding navel gazing. Since it was the tale of an outlaw then it is likely true that everyone in the environment was evil, but what did I learn that I needed to know?
Nothing and I learned it slowly.
1 of 5 stars.
Bill Crawford The Bayou Christian
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1 comment:
As one who grew up in the St. Joe area--as a young man in the early 1900s, my granddad rode with some older farmers who actually knew Jesse and Frank--I can only say that Bob Ford is still seen as "that dirty little coward . . . who laid Jesse James in his grave."
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