I had to watch the first half of this movie twice (so that's - mathwise - 15 hours total?) because the first time I was like "Ok, so those dudes are cousins, but that one's brother hates his brother and then the wife won't talk to that dude and then those cousins got shot because and then the brothers that went into the woods with the cousins and the horses and the....start over....alright here we go...ok, they're staying at that place because they're gonna hide, but those guys are gettin sent to kill that dude who ended up living by himself in filth for some reason...and this is all over a period of 2 days? a month? 5 years? Who's lost - show of hands!" When the narrator came in with some information, I was like, "Yeah Buddy! Where ya been??" Movies are tough on those of us with attention consistency problems, so when major plot turns are tied up in one sentence of heavy, dated vernacular of the Old West from a character whose presence in the movie you don't even understand, then all hell breaks loose. It's like when you're in middle school reading Romeo and Juliet and Mercutio's all, "Thoth dothest rose thorn brazens mine bottle frith with sap!" and the teacher's all, "See, he's plotting revenge!" and you're all, "I thought he was watering his garden, WTF?" I'm sorry, I forgot to bring my thinkin cap to Screening #1 of TAOJJBTCRF, but I paid closer attention during Screening #2 and was able to pick up on enough to follow it and to determine that it was a good movie.
I thought Casey really took the cake with his weird little lip twitches and Oxycontin eyelids and Brad Pitt, hotter than crap as usual, delivered. Brad is one of those actors that I'm always rootin for...not just because he's an immaculate specimen of hot - but because he just seems like a nice guy and he seems like he WANTS IT. He wants to do well, but sometimes you get the sense that he's in just a little bit over his head, and it hurts to watch. So when I heard about this movie, I was like, OK, here we go, period piece, Brad's playing a legendary figure of the Old West and I winced. Just a bit, but I did. But when it was all said and done, and we made it through to the end OK, Brad and I, I was like WHEW....that was close. But he did fine. He did good.
This review's KEY POINT: So remember that part when Brad Pitt cut off that snake's head to eat it? Was that a real snake???