Review by Loc
Westerns are always en vogue. It’s the execution that actually determines whether its manly enough to warrant praise. Sometimes, you take the serious route and you get Unforgiven. Sometimes, you do the Hollywood thing and get Tombstone. Sometimes, you add humor and get Shanghai Noon. Whatever the case, you get dust, horses, and some type of cowboy archetype to hang your ten gallon hat on. So what happens when you get the Coen Brothers to do their take on the genre? Quick hit: pretty good stuff.
True Grit was originally adapted as a John Wayne vehicle. If there’s ever a cowboy character made for John Wayne, Rooster Cogburn is it. In this latest version, Jeff Bridges steps in as the overage, overweight curmudgeon. Bridges has taken his career to the elder statesman stage, choosing meaty roles to chew on. As Cogburn, he does a very nice job of being a generally likable toughguy who embraces his unlikable persona. It’s good for this film.
Matt Damon steps in as the smarmy Texas Ranger LaBoef, a talkative know-it-all who can back up his bravado with some skill. Damon is solid here and does a nice job as well. Newcomer and unknown Hailee Steinfeld steps in as Mattie Ross, the strong-willed, intelligent child forced to into a grownup role after her father is killed. She’s the main voice of this film and her wiser-than-her-age act is entertaining. She never gets too smart and her act never wears thin. Much more of her would have bordered on this, but the Coen’s do a good job of walking that fine line.
The film itself is a nice twist of Coen-infused Western. It’s never a straight-up revenge piece that is so serious you have a hard time believing it. However, it’s not a satire and the humor is more in the way the characters interact and their natural tendencies than any smarmy dialogue or tongue-in-cheek laughs. It moves along well enough, even though the majority is watching Bridges, Damon, and Steinfeld trot along deserted frontier land.
Overall, this is a very strong film. It’s like watching Red Dead Redemption on the big screen. For those of you unfamiliar, that’s a Western-based video game that exploits the open environment concept of games like Grand Theft Auto. True Grit is like that in it meanders about, but you never feel bored or disengaged from the story. Out of $300 dollar price tags for horses, True Grit grinds its way to $210.
Rated: 7/10
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