I have a soft spot for slow moving, lengthy, operatic films and this one was right up my street. Weighing in at 160 minutes you had better make sure you are sitting comfortably beforehand. From the very beginning you are taken in by the beautiful cinematography and the haunting soundtrack. Roger Deakins is the man getting the credit for the overall look of the film. The englishman is best known for his sterling work with the Coen brothers in films such as Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There, O Brother Where Art Thou? and No Country For Old Men and also on Martin Scorsese's Kundun. This film has a sepia tonality which evokes picture postcards of the "old West", an occasional blurring of the edges giving a dreamlike quality and makes fabulous use of the open spaces and cloudscapes of Canada (standing in Missouri).

The soundtrack here is from the increasingly prolific film score partnership formed between Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. If you were impressed by their work on John Hillcoat's Australian outback "western" The Proposition you will be further impressed here. The music is sparse, elegiac and unsettling but perfectly matched to the pacing and the brooding intensity of the film.

That director Andrew Dominik manages to hold the viewer rapt for the whole of the 160 minutes while employing such measured and snail-like pacing is a great credit to him. He has also drawn fantastic performances from all of his actors. Brad Pitt is well cast as the enigmatic and unpredictable Jesse James. His finely nuanced performance is one of his best to date, which is fairly high praise given his now formidable back catalogue of work. Casey Affleck's turn as Robert Ford deserves great praise and proves again that he is an actor of real talent. Sam Rockwell, playing Robert Ford's older brother Charlie, gives his best performance since 2003's Matchstick Men and the three of them are given remarkable support from Sam Shephard (as Frank James), Paul Schneider (Dick Liddel), Garret Dillahunt (Ed Miller) and Jeremy Renner (Wood Hite).

Nick Cave has a short cameo towards the end of the film as a bar singer. For people who know who he is the cameo does have the effect of jumping you out of your immersion in the story for a few moments as you point and say "that's Nick Cave!". However, since the soundtrack was so good, I'll forgive it.

Definitely one of the best films I've seen in the last year. Recommended viewing.