Bob Ford is portrayed as a fawning sycophant who is obsessed with Jesse's national celebrity and hopes to one day attain similar renown for himself.

Indeed, the Fords end up negotiating a deal with the Governor of Missouri to capture or kill Jesse in exchange for the offered reward and exoneration of their previous crimes.

Following Jesse's murder, the Fords receive the promised acquittal and a portion of the reward money, but find themselves almost unanimously detested and ostracized by the American public.

yet also drawing away to show us the frame like an announcer's binding narration" and noted that "only occasionally can [Hansen] get tension into this documentary approach; and the zooms between close-up and voice-over soon become predictable and sapping.

[3] In March 2004, Warner Bros. and Plan B Entertainment obtained the feature film rights to the novel and hired Andrew Dominik to write and direct the adaptation.