With a Brad Pitt movie about Jesse James about to hit US theaters, The History Channel has decided to release a DVD about the famous criminal. The oddly titled Jesse James: American Outlaw actually contains a program originally broadcast on cable entitles The Plot to Kill Jesse James. This documentary focuses on Robert Ford, James' assassin, much more than it does on James himself. People looking for a comprehensive documentary about Jesse James' life need to go else where as this program only focuses on the last couple of years of his life.

Jesse James was already a well known outlaw by the time Robert Ford was able to read. He read dime novels about the criminal, how he only robbed Northerners or businesses owned by people from the North, and grew to idolize the man. Eventually Ford and his older brother turned to a life of crime and started stealing horses.

The James Gang had been badly depleted due to an ill-fated robbery in Minnesota in 1876. New recruits were hard to find, and in 1880 Jesse allowed Bob and his brother Charles to join. The younger Ford thought that this was his invitation to excitement, fame, and riches, but he was very much mistaken. Treated as a virtual slave and made to do most of the camp's manual labor, Robert wasn't allowed to go on any robberies and soon grew to resent his hero.

Robert put up with abuse from James for two years, but by that time Jesse was getting past his prime and growing increasingly paranoid that one of his gang would turn him in for the $10,000 reward that was on his head. He even killed one of his own men who he suspected of plotting against him while on a night raid.

Ford was plotting against James and had contacted Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden about the reward. On April 3, 1882 Jesse read in the papers that one of his gang, Dick Liddil, had surrendered to authorities. He was surprised that Robert hadn't told him about it since the two were friends and in the same area and asked the young man about it. Ford feigned not to know about the arrest but when Jesse suggested going on a night raid, Robert knew that his days were numbered and that he had to act. While the famous outlaw's back was turned, Ford shot the unarmed man in the head.

Told through reenactments and with talking-head analysis by professors and James biographers, this program shows a side of Jesse James that usually isn't portrayed. Mean and occasionally sadistic, this outlaw is probably closer to the real man than the "Robin Hood" character that is sometimes portrayed.

Robert Ford on the other hand comes across as fairly sympathetic, which is fairly amazing. After all, he was an outlaw who was angry that Jesse wouldn't allow him to rob and pillage more. I also have to wonder about some of the analysis of his character. The program goes to great lengths to show that he wasn't a coward, and claims at one point that he was more like a stalker who wanted to take Jesse's place in the public eye. It also puts forth the hypothesis that he killed Jesse for the money, but that was only to help out his parents who had fallen on hard times. There's not much evidence given for any of these proposals, and while they may be true, I wonder how these biographers seem to know what was going through Ford's mind during his two years in Jesse's gang.

Another odd thing about this disc, aside from the very misleading name, is that the person who wrote the blurb for the back cover apparently hadn't seen the show he was writing about. The back cover copy claims that this show "examines James' legendary murder and the mystery that continues to surround his death today..." The show doesn't examine any mystery though, except to barely mention that some people thought that James death was faked and that no one seriously believes that today.

Audio:

The stereo soundtrack was about average for a documentary. The narration and dialog was easy to hear, but there wasn't much use made of the front soundstage, even during the bank robbery reenactments. The audio was clean though and it fits the show well.

Video:

*sigh* This show is presented with a non-anamorphic widescreen image. With 16X9 video displays being fairly common now there is no reason not of anamorphically enhance the image. This is a significant error and the disc really loses point for that. Aside from that glaring defect the picture looked pretty good. There were some very minor compression artifacts, a little aliasing in the background, but aside from that the colors and detail were on par with other made-for-TV documentaries.

Extras:

This disc also includes an episode of the TV show Biography that deals with the James Gang. It was interesting to see the stark differences between this look at Jesse James' life and the one shown in the feature presentation. While there weren't any major contradictions, the implications are almost diametrically opposed. This documentary implies that Jesse was a nice guy who was gunned down for the money; while the other show on this disc states that he was a mean, paranoid, bastard who was planning to gun down the Bob Ford that evening. While this 42 minute show does cover much more ground than the feature, it glosses over many aspects of the James Gang and isn't very thorough.

Final Thoughts:

While this is a good documentary, I have some problems with it. The title is misleading and the back cover copy is just plain wrong. It's a good enough program to stand on its own merits, they don't need to fool or trick people into buying the disc. The fact that the widescreen image isn't anamorphically enhanced is also a big strike against it. Because of these problems people who are interesting in a close look at the assassination of Jesse James and the man who killed him would be better off renting this documentary.