Artfully exciting and compulsively watchable, this film makes good on the promise New Zealand writer-director Andrew Dominik showed with Chopper.
It’s set during the late 1800s in Missouri, at the end of Jesse James’ notorious criminal career and during the final year of his life before he was shot by a member of his gang.
A Western in aesthetics only and steeped in period detail, it’s really more of a gripping psychological thriller, as well as a superb study of obsession and paranoia, as well as reminiscent of the great Westerns of the early 70s such as McCabe & Mrs Miller.