The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Michael Clayton seem to be considered two of the best movies from 2007. Just look at the ratings, they’re getting 7.9 and 7.7 from IMDB, respectively, with plenty of votes.
Both are star studded with excellent performances but I felt that Jessie James ended up being boring. The movie is about the famed rebel Jesse James and his finals days in Missouri in the late 1800’s. Again, great performances by Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt, but pacing (2 hrs 40 mins) was really slow, and it wasn’t that clear to me why Robert Ford ends up killing Jesse James. They talk about why, even that Ford regrets doing it later, but how the movie shows it, it doesn’t fit for me. The movie is well shot, it simply feels like a good movie, but I didn’t feel like there was a point to the movie or any tension. Watching Jesse James also makes you feel like you’re reading a book at times, the extensive way the voiceover narrator is used in the movie.
Michael Clayton, however, has good pacing along with good performances. It’s a story about being a “fixer” in a law firm, a guy who fixes problems like the title suggests. It’s a look at the life of Michael Clayton as he goes through a few days of fixing stuff, and the kind of issues he has to deal with morally and ethically. I like the story, it’s engaging, it makes you think about the law system in the US a little bit, and it’s reasonably believable, believable enough to wonder…
I gave Jesse James a 6/10 and Michael Clayton a 7/10 on IMDB.
