Grade: A
Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)
Writers: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges as US Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, Matt Damon as Texas Ranger La Boeuf, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney
“The wicked flee though no one pursues.” – Proverbs 28:1
So begins Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest outing, True Grit. If one were to read the verse further, they would see: “…but the righteous are bold as a lion.” The rest of the film is spent trying to see if the leads are “bold as a lion” and have that true grit.
Fourteen-year old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) arrives in a bustling Western town to see to her father’s dead body. She knows he was killed by the “cowardly” Tom Chaney (Brolin) and is looking for someone to help her find him and bring him back for execution. She finds two options, US Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Bridges), a whiskey-lover known for his take-no-prisoners, trigger-finger attitude, and Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Damon), a formulaic lawman who has been following Chaney from Texas where he is wanted for a murder of a State Senator. She chooses Cogburn, but he teams up with La Boeuf and both set off on their own and leave Mattie behind. She buys a horse and charges after them, set on getting retribution for her father’s murder. The film is based on the book of the same name by Charles Portis released in 1968. The book was originally adapted as a film in 1969 with John Wayne playing Rooster Cogburn’s role and winning an Academy Award for it.
Jeff Bridges sure does his part in playing Rooster as a drunkard with a quick wit and an even quicker gun. It shouldn’t be a surprise when he picks up his second straight Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Bridges seems to systematically disappear into the character like James Franco did in 127 Hours. Some of the best scenes in the film are when Bridges and Damon’s characters are going back and forth on which of their respective groups have a better reputation and what they’ve done. That dynamic makes Damon’s otherwise creepy and annoying character tolerable for the times he is on screen. Brolin does not show up until the last half hour, so his starring credit is a bit overdone.
The real star of the film is Steinfeld. While at times she accidentally breaks the drawl, her performance as the relentless, hard-headed daughter of a murdered man is dynamite. This makes the third major performance of a under-16 actor/actress I’ve seen this year that should be getting a lot of praise, the others being Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Grace Moretz in Matt Reeves’ Let Me In. While they haven’t gotten the necessary accolades, Steinfeld has already been rewarded by critics, with those in Austin, Chicago, Houston, Indiana, Toronto and the entire Southeastern Film Critics Association giving her their award for Best Supporting Actress. It’s just a crime that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association left her and Bridges out of the Golden Globe nominations. And honestly, I don’t see why she’s a Supporting candidate; she is definitely the film’s main character, with the mood of the film mimicking her state of mind.
And the Coen brothers for that matter. No Country for Old Men was already on my Netflix queue and hopefully it will be here soon. I love O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Raising Arizona. The Big Lebowski annoyed me. Make it 3-1 in the affirmative, because their storytelling and their scriptwriting wit is as sharp as ever, if not better. Roger Deakins’ cinemtography reminded me of the only other real Western I’ve seen, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
The only other criticism, besides the under-use of Josh Brolin and the unintentional obnoxiousness Matt Damon brought, is that the film was too short. Clocking in at 110 minutes, it seemed too short. There was not a whole lot of character exposition of any of the major characters. The Coens tried to slip it in with random stories told by the characters and it worked in a small way.
But that does not take away from the enjoyable comedic and dramatic Western that is True Grit. Expect the Coen brothers, Academy favorites, to rack in nominations come January unless someone forgets to write it down. And that would take true grit.
