nammage This is a fantasy. Instead of telling a story about Frank and Jesse James, and the Cole brothers, all of which were bad people who robbed banks, trains, stagecoaches, and people in general--and murdered many. They are not heroes. They are villains. In this film, however, though many times described as doing horrible things and even shown as doing horrible things, they are painted as heroes.I can get over the inaccuracies. All movies have them. Some more than others but this one just seems to say, "Who cares?" -- and it doesn't. I am capable of separating the two and judging a film on the whole and rather than just nitpick it for certain things, such as historical accuracy.I can not picture Rob Lowe as Jesse James. Not even as I was watching it. And I thought perhaps that Bill Paxton could pull off Frank James but I was wrong. In the beginning I had hope for him but seemed as he played Frank as a clown.I won't lie and say there aren't good scenes but they don't make up for the rest of the film that is just overplayed, badly acted, and directed poorly.

poly-nikes The whole sequence of the ill-fated raid by the gang on the Northfield bank was totally unrealistic. Anybody count the number of shots the outlaws fired from their revolvers in that scene? I always thought the pistols of that era held a maximum of six rounds; well, five actually, to be safe. You wouldn't want to be bouncing around on horseback with the hammer of your pistol resting on a live round. It's silliness like this that spoils so many Westerns. In "Open Range," for instance, the Kevin Costner character fires far more than six shots from his revolver before reloading in the otherwise pretty good climactic gunfight. And at the end of "Wild Bill," another good film, Jeff Bridges fires at least twenty shots from his pair of six-guns.

FightingWesterner The umpteenth retelling of the James gang story, Frank And Jesse is loaded with historical inaccuracies and blatant audience manipulation, but as a good old southern boy who still hasn't made peace with the Union, I'm suspending my BS detector and declaring this an awesome movie and one of the best westerns of the nineties!This is full of bloody shootouts and action packed escapes. Also, the period detail is much better than later independently produced westerns. My only problem is that all the best scenes are early on in the film and the rest of it suffers by comparison.Rob Lowe is probably the the last person I would have expected to star as Jesse James and I must admit I was a bit skeptical of him (translation: too pretty) but he did a good job portraying Jesse as an innocent youth pushed by the carpetbaggers and unforgiving northerners into becoming an avenger of southern pride and human dignity (the afore mentioned audience manipulation) before causing his own downfall through arrogance and carelessness.As Frank James, Bill Paxton gives an excellent performance that left me wondering why he hasn't been in more westerns.William Atherton and Luke Askew, as the villains, also stand out in this well cast movie.

Jay Harris Over the years there have been many films depicting the lives & events of the James Gang. A few of them were more or less factual, this version is more fiction than fact. Rob Lowe & Bill Paxton are the James boys.Of course IMHO the best Jesse & Frank were Tyrone Power & Henry Fonda, Rob & Bill do not come close..The most glaring and obvious error was this,. IT WAS BOB FORD not CHARLIE FORD that shot Jesse in the back at end of film.There are other errors as well, which will not be detailed.Alexis Arquette portrays Charlie Ford, He does try I will say that,William Atherton gives the best performance as the detective Alan Pinkertion, he is a fine actor to boot & here he does a first class job. This may have been a better film if the acting by the leads was better. The production credits were OK.ratings **1/2 out of 4---67 points out of 100 IMDb 5 out of 10NOTE on points the 67 grad is just 3 points above a ** rating