A final analysis of Jesse James - Andrew Dominik takes a psychological look at the outlaw, with nary a western cliché in sight.

Although Dominik can laugh about that encounter now, test screenings were very much a part of his making "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Filmed two years ago and originally scheduled to reach theaters last fall, "Jesse James" went through countless revisions -- "I've seen this movie more times than any movie I've ever seen in my life," says Pitt, who plays James and also produced the film -- and is now set to arrive in theaters on Sept. 21. It must then compete against not only another western -- Christian Bale and Russell Crowe's "3:10 to Yuma," which opened Friday -- but also moviegoers' expectations of what a western should and shouldn't be.

Adapted from Ron Hansen's elegant and meticulous historical novel, "Jesse James" is not interested in the clichés of the genre: circling wagons, lassos and yells of "Giddyap!" Instead, Hansen and Dominik both focus on the complex bond -- part love story, part disciple-and-Jesus betrayal -- between the wannabe gunslinger Ford and James, among history's most celebrated outlaws.

"I don't call it a western," Pitt says. "I call it something worse: a psychological drama. And that's why it's going to be a hard thing to sell this film."

Although Hansen's novel is not lengthy (it's a tad more than 300 pages) and has little traditional narrative action, the book and Dominik's screenplay are dense in character and atmosphere. The organizing principle is Ford's (Casey Affleck) dimly homoerotic obsession with, and ultimate killing of, James, with whom Ford briefly rode and robbed. At one point in both the novel and the film, James asks Ford, "I can't figure it out: Do you want to be like me, or do you want to be me?"

After Ford assassinated his onetime idol, he was at first lionized by the country, then seen as a gutless legend killer.

"I have zero interest in Jesse James as an American phenomenon," says the 39-year-old Dominik, whose debut feature was 2000's critically lauded Australian film "Chopper," which established actor Eric Bana. "And I don't like westerns -- they are kind of dull, actually.