In the mid-nineteenth century, Jesse James was famous as a neo-Confederate bandit fighting for the glory the South lost in Civil War.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford attempts to reconstruct the last few months of Jesse's life leading up to his death, but the movie suffers from its ambition to be so meticulously accurate and realistic.

This problem is often a symptom of historically based movies: just the title of the movie alone lets you know exactly where the story will end up. Yet the movie takes nearly three hours to finally reach the foreknown conclusion, using the time to attempt to thoroughly flesh out James's character.

Unfortunately, we are never adequately shown why the outlaw is to be feared or respected, and despite Brad Pitt's strong performance as James, it is difficult to feel any strong emotions about his inglorious fate.

The movie is not without appeal. Pitt falls easily into James's persona as a psychopathic and deadly madman, a role Pitt is used to playing (think Fight Club). Casey Affleck, too, delivers a powerful performance as the nervous, ambitious and tormented Ford.

The cinematography is excellent, beautifully capturing the lonely and desperate lives of the outlaws, whether showing a lone figure riding to a solitary cabin in a landscape swept with snow or the dusty light streaming around James as he stands alone at the window.

But nonetheless, The Assassination of Jesse James fails to be a significant portrayal of the last months of America's most famous outlaw.

The fact that the failure is laced with so much ambition, beauty and excellent acting makes it that much more pronounced.

In attempting to analyze the legend of Jesse James, the movie strips the man of any glory, fictional or not, his icon may have possessed.