With True Grit, the Coen Brotehrs take on a genre for the first time in their long and exemplary career, but when it comes to the Coens, even the straightforward, straightforward western undergoes a transformation.
14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) has lost her father and the law of the land is too lazy and too busy to hunt down the long-gone killer Ton Chaney (Josh Brolin). Mattie arranges her father’s business, organizes his funeral, but won’t be home until Chaney is brought to justice, so she decides to enlist the services of US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) simply because he’s the man. ruthless there is.
She walks over to him, but Rooster shrugs the teen off. As she tries to convince Rooster, Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) asks her to team up, since he’s also hot on Chaney’s trail. She turns down LaBoeuf’s offer, but to her dismay, the two men leave without telling her and decide to split the reward. Rooster is only interested in catching Chaney and doesn’t care where he tried, but Mattie won’t have it any other way and tells the men that he will kill Chaney once they catch him. After a disagreement, LaBoeuf goes his own way, and Mattie finally comes face to face with her father’s killer. She looks over her shoulder at Rooster, but a hungover Rooster is no match for Chaney, who along with Lucky Ned (Barry Pepper) takes Mattie hostage. Would Rooster, the man they say with true determination, manage to keep his word given to a 14-year-old boy who trusted him?
Instead of keeping things black and white like most classic westerns end up doing, the Coen brothers keep their version of True Grit very true to the book and very real. In essence, True Grit wouldn’t have worked so wonderfully if it hadn’t been for Hailee Steinfeld’s very believable performance. She brings a certain sense of boldness to Mattie Ross that makes you want to root for her.
The original True Grit may be remembered largely for John Wayne’s histrionics, but Jeff Bridges delivers a commanding performance of his own. There are places where one can’t quite figure out what the hell Rooster is saying thanks to Bridges’ wacky southern drawl, but the nonchalance with which he portrays the larger-than-life Cogburn makes it hard not to like him.
Matt Damon’s understated LaBoeuf is the weakest performance of all, and let’s just say his fears that it’s hard to imagine Damon playing a Western character weren’t entirely wrong. Josh Brolin as fugitive Tom Chaney has a hypnotic effect, as does Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned.
Any Coen Brothers movie is nothing short of great cinema in the truest sense of the word, but True Grit is a visual treat that ends up being a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Roger Deakins’ superior cinematography has brought many Coen Brothers films to life, but True Grit is Deakins’ shining hour. Just as the brothers take storytelling to a level only a few can dream of, a still from Roger Deakins is often worth a million words and you have to watch True Grit to know what the visual medium is capable of.
Like No Country For Old Men, True Grit simmers. While No Country For Old Men hits you like a bullet from the start, True Grit takes its own sweet time to work its way into your mind. The movie isn’t the western you’ve grown accustomed to; no problem. With the Coens, even the phone book can become magical. For most of the time, you don’t even notice the way True Grit sucks you in; you happily tag along and may also lose interest in places, but suddenly there comes a point where the drama unfolding in front of you sucks you into its world and there is no turning back then.
The last 20 minutes of True Grit is where it all comes together in the way you least expect. The movie may not work for some viewers as it’s not fireworks in the conventional sense of the word, but watch it anyway and you’ll be enthralled.
Rating: 3 ½ out of 5
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper
Written by: Joel and Ethan Coen based on the book True Grit by Charles Portis
Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen