Jesse James: Unchained

Right, well needless to say that I had never actually heard about this 2022 Western titled "Jesse James: Unchained" prior to sitting down to watch it. All I knew about the movie was that it was a Western and apparently about the iconic Jesse James person.

Writer John Oak Dalton didn't exactly manage to put together a particularly riveting storyline here. In fact, it was a rather dull and monotonous attempt at writing a script for a Western. And it never took off, much less actually ever got to the starting position.

Director Henrique Couto didn't have anything to work with in terms of script and storyline, and it was showing on the screen. Oh dear lord, how it was showing on the screen. And that made for a very unbearable movie experience.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. And that is usually something I enjoy when I watch a movie, as there are no associations to previously portrayed characters from other movies. But the actors and actresses in this movie were struggling, as they had nothing to work with in terms of script, character gallery and dialogue.

"Jesse James: Unchained" didn't look or feel like a Western movie. It looked and felt like something you would come across when walking in the local forest and seeing a handful of people in Halloween cowboy costumes and brandishing a digital video camera. Yeah, this movie felt like it was shot right out in the backyard.

And the costumes were so difficult to take serious. First of all, the colors, way too polished and bright to pass as something that would have been seen in the late 1800s. And the fact that all the clothing was spotless of dirt and so shiny you could almost use it a mirror, just didn't work at all. It felt like they had rented the costumes at a store somewhere, and had to ensure not to get them dirty, as it would negate whatever deposit they had to put down on renting the costumes.

If you enjoy Western movies, you need to save your self the anguish of wasting 75 minutes on "Jesse James: Unchained". It just simply isn't worth the effort. Some of us suffered through this ordeal, this mockery of a Western movie, so you don't have to.

My rating of "Jesse James: Unchained" lands on a two out of ten stars.

It looks like they had a decent budget to make this but they blew it on costumes and hired the cheapest actors they could find !

I don't know what is worse, the standard of acting, the standard of directing, the standard of cinematography or the standard of the dialogue but there is nothing here to make me want to watch the entire thing ! How can anyone take this kind of film seriously and why would anyone spend time and money throwing it together and releasing it ? There is no good reason to waste time watching this drivel and it should be taken down and hidden from public view forever because if one person thinks they can get away with it, others will too !

Readers can see this based on the trailer... they don't even have to watch the film to see what I'm writing about in this review.

Jesse James - 1847 - 1882, died at the age of 35. (The actor portraying Jesse appears to be closer to 40 or even 45 - definitely not early 30s.)

Levi Straus, Jacob Davis - Denim Jeans invented 1873.

So while it is certainly possible Jesse James wore denim jeans the last 9 years of his life... I do question how likely is it to see so many cast members wearing jeans?? And would they ever have more than one pair of jeans. I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that the first few years jeans were more of a luxury item and not as commonplace as they were 50 years later. Would an outlaw be going out of his way to buy a brand-spanking-new pair of jeans? Which also appear to be manufactured over a century later - even jeans made in the 1950s don't look the same as 2023 jeans.

To see Jesse James wearing, what look like, brand new, yet-to-be-washed (or soiled) bright blue denim jeans.. just ruins this film visually.

Complete lack of attention to this alone makes this film clearly an "afterthought" with no one actually paying any attention to historical accuracy... apparently made by some UK folks/production company, on a shoe-string budget, about a US outlaw and US history - and it shows.

Small, prolific, inaccuracies can ruin a film which is based on a historical figure...