Who said the western was dead? Actually, it was Ridley Scott, the co-producer of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, about three hours before the world premiere of this movie at the Venice Film Festival. I hope he chokes on our stars.

Andrew Dominik’s sensational film debags a cherished idol. Tyrone Power, Robert Wagner and Roy Rogers famously played Jesse James like Robin Hood. Brad Pitt plays him like a poisonous Mr Hyde. The moment Pitt swaggers through a wheatfield armed with a warm pistol and a three-piece black suit, we know we are in the presence of a superior bastard.

“When Jesse walks by even the rain falls slower,” croons the narrator, before whisking us through the hospital bills and wanted posters: granulated eyelids (shingles), two bullet holes, a missing middle finger on his left hand, 17 murders, chronic insomnia, countless armed robberies and an undying hatred of the Union after the Civil War.

Jesse and his leather-faced brother Frank (Sam Shepard) have killed too many people to discuss anything but the business in hand. Frank hates the violence. Jesse has a talent and taste for the job.

Their target is a bank safe on a steam train trying to cross Blue Cut Mountain in the middle of winter, 1881. It’s here, at a chilly campsite in the woods, that Bob Ford tries to join the outlaws he has worshipped since childhood.

Casey Affleck is brilliant as the simpering, secret admirer of the James gang. He is also one of the most unholy creeps I’ve seen on screen. Pitt is amused by this needy boy. He is flattered by his pathetic loyalty. Ford is spookily infatuated with the outlaw. He has a shoebox full of James gang newspaper clippings under his bed. He knows Jesse’s height and boot size, the kind of guns he carries, the cigars he likes to smoke and the scent he wears to bed.

James is fascinated and repulsed by Ford’s shiny green eyes and shy smiles. “I can’t figure out if you want to be like me, or be me,” he ponders, as Ford greedily watches his naked mentor take a bath.

Pitt’s ability to look through characters like a pane of glass has taken years to perfect. Few actors in Hollywood have the charisma to stare him down. His screen paranoia chimes perfectly with the times. It must be miserable acting opposite the American actor in such an arrogant mood. His Oscar nomination is a certainty. Affleck’s squirming performance is just as deserving, but the academy would never knowingly give the Best Actor award to Iago.

James can’t escape his own myth. The paranoia works on the actor like a disease. He looks haunted and ill. The baleful blue eyes never smile; the humour is hollow. He has spent too many nights waiting for Judas in the garden of Gethsemane. He has plugged too many bullets into false friends. The practical joke in which James suddenly slides a knife under someone’s Adam’s apple freezes the laughter at supper. It’s only a matter of time before he is betrayed.

But the outlaw’s death is still a trembling shock. You realise that James has gifted Ford the tools to kill a legend long before his murderer has the wit to notice. The bitter irony about both men is that they are balled and chained by their own infamy.

Ford’s fleeting glory after putting a bullet through his hero’s skull quickly sours. The authorities are thrilled. The most wanted man in America is dead. What happens next is almost another film. Affleck’s coward replays the final betrayal on stages all over America. His performances make him a fortune, while James melts into myth. Inevitably, audiences turn on Robert Ford. In time he becomes a pariah. It’s this fickle twist of fate that makes Dominik’s film such an intelligent and gripping watch. The western is alive and well.

Certificate 15, 150 mins

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