"Look at my red hands and my mean face..."

I suggest that Brad Pitt is a good actor, one who challenges himself only sometimes. I thought he was very good in SEVEN. I thought he was funny in SNATCH - a movie that ages horribly. I thought he was terrific in TWELVE MONKEYS. Aside from these flicks, I have a hard time recommending any of his other roles - that includes Fight Club and Babel.

I think he is a moody actor; brooding, introspective, contemplative. It is hard for actors like this to find meaty roles, especially when they're a sex symbol of Pitts caliber. An actor like this needs to find roles that exploit their celebrity, play off of their larger than life persona, and give the actor a chance to brood, to act with their eyes, body language and sexuality.

Pitt has found the PERFECT role in a near perfect film. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is not a small miracle or a minor masterpiece - this film is an epic accomplishment; it is gritty, raw, beautiful, poetic, lyrical, and occasionally mesmerizing. It exists somewhere between historically accurate and fabled history - that exact place where a legend is born. Technically, it reminds you of a western that John Cassavetes might have made - or something Robert Altman did make with McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

The movie has a dream-like quality, most of which is due to the STUNNING cinematography, which restores the western to its iconic roots. Every shot seems carefully modulated to enhance the film's moody, dazed sensation. I can honestly say that this is one of the single most beautiful films I have ever seen.

Everyone knows the story, so I won't talk too much about plot except to say that Robert Ford(Casey Affleck - shockingly good) worms his way into the James Gang, lead by Frank and Jesse James. He is obsessed with the James' celebrity and spends most of the movie trying to get close to Pitt's western icon.

Pitt, well, Pitt's performance is not unlike the excellent Viggo Mortensen performance I reviewed last week - it feeds off his physicality, his sheer presence. The difference with Pitt's role is that he is truly unnerving sometimes. He enters a room and sort of floats around, taking control the space. There is one scene, where he interrogates a member of his gang whom he suspects has betrayed him - Jesse James was paranoid and capable of sudden, vicious violence - in this scene, Pitt acts with his eyes, solely his eyes, and you can sense all that he is capable of in that very moment and Andrew Domanik (director) lets his camera linger on Pitt's face, lets him think, and the tension grows as we read his mind.

That's something I love about this film. People complain of its length and its self-indulgence, but this film features people who think, who just sit and contemplate their actions, their lives - people really do this. Andrew Domanik allows his characters to think and that's something Cassavetes would do, although some of his characters didn't have the capacity to think, which was typically their downfall.

Something tells me that this will be another amazing film that goes unnoticed, perhaps even at awards time. That is a shame because here is a film so well crafted that it will immediately shoot up the lists of my ALL-TIME great list. It really is that good and Pitt really is that good. Its one of those SCARFACE roles or John Belushi roles, where just the image of him allowing snakes to coil around his arm will be inconic.

I hope people don't miss this one. I know it is long and slow to develop, but the care and skill on display here is top-notch - perhaps GREATNESS has truly been achieved. This is what I was referring to when I said that a film cannot be judged solely by the genre it is working within - this, so far this year, has been the best film I've seen.