Frank & Jesse Reviews

Yet another variation on the oft-told story of bank and train robbers Frank and Jesse James, the made-for-cable FRANK AND JESSE tells their story concisely and with some new twists, but adds little to the previous body of film lore devoted to the famed outlaws. When a railroad agent burns out their family's farmhouse, brothers Frank (Bill Paxton) and Jesse James (Rob Lowe), former raiders in Captain Quantrill's confederate guerrilla band, round up their old riding partners, including Cole Younger (Randy Travis) and his brother Bob (Todd Field), to form a gang to rob banks and trains controlled by the Rock Central Railroad of Chicago. Hired by the railroad, Allan Pinkerton (William Atherton) and his agents set out to apprehend the band but are thwarted by the bandits' strong support among the populace of Missouri. Pinkerton's first break comes when captured gang member Charlie Ford (Alexis Arquette) agrees to report on the James gang's activities. When the band journeys far afield, to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, they find Pinkerton agents and townsmen lying in wait for them. The resulting shootout leaves most of the gang captured or dead. Only Frank and Jesse escape. Cooperating with Pinkerton, Charlie Ford and his brother Bob (Jim Flowers) track down Jesse, living under an assumed name in St. Joseph, Missouri, and pay him an ostensibly friendly visit at home. When he gets the opportunity, Bob Ford shoots Jesse in the back. Frank James gives himself up to the Governor of Missouri and eventually wins his freedom after three acquittals. As is true of most previous Jesse James films, FRANK & JESSE follows the general arc of the James' careers fairly accurately but distorts or falsifies most of the individual details. Visually, it owes a lot to Walter Hill's THE LONG RIDERS (1980), from the drab southern exteriors (in this case, Arkansas) to the murky photographic look that has too often passed for realism in westerns of the past 20 years. The film digs a little deeper than previous films into the relationship between the doubt-ridden, Shakespeare-and-Bible-spouting Frank and the hot-headed, trigger-happy Jesse, going so far as to fabricate Frank's guilt over having instigated Jesse's life of killing by bringing the boy along on guerrilla Captain Quantrill's murderous 1863 raid on Lawrence, Kansas. (The historical record shows that Jesse did not participate in the raid on Lawrence, but went on other, equally bloody forays without Frank.) The always dependable Bill Paxton turns in a solid performance as farmer-turned-outlaw and ultimate survivor Frank, while Rob Lowe makes an energetic, if determinedly shallow and short-lived, Jesse. Of the rest of the cast, country singer Randy Travis acquits himself well as the stubborn Cole Younger (who narrates the film) and William Atherton makes a suitably imperious and relentless Pinkerton. (Violence, profanity.)