03 January 2011

True Grit

True-Grit-Movie-Image-1

So it’s been over a week since I saw it. Just didn’t ever feel like writing. Now I’ve got a few hours free, and I’ve managed to avoid starting up Minecraft. Let’s do this.

It’s the second film adaptation of the book that I haven’t read. Haven’t seen the first one either, but I’ve seen enough John Wayne movies to get the idea, so my excitement for this wasn’t due to its predecessors, rather everything else about it. It’s directed by the Coen brothers, who have made some of the best movies of recent years. It’s starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, two of my favorite actors. It’s a western. This Hailee Steinfeld looked to be pretty dang good.

So the story is pretty simple. This girl Mattie Ross’s dad was murdered by a good for nothin’ outlaw (Josh Brolin), and she’s hiring a man with “true grit” to bring him to justice. She finds Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) in pretty short order, and manages to get him to help her out after proving that she herself is not without gumption. Damon tags along as Texas Ranger La Boeuf, and the character drama begins.

It’s definitely a western. It has all the feel of those old movies that I remember so fondly, except with that Coen strangeness in the situations and dialogue making it even more entertaining. It’s really much more funny that I had expected, with few scenes that didn’t merit a laugh; and yet, it doesn’t feel like a comedy. It’s a drama. Stanfield does an amazing job as the lead even overlooking that it’s her first theatrical movie, delivering her confidently fast-paced lines very convincingly, a bit like Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network. She has an aura of urgency that contributes to the dramatic edge while keeping it from being dry. Jeff Bridges is as great as ever, completely immersing himself in the character rather than just disinterestedly mumbling like in Tron: Legacy. Matt Damon also becomes a new man, much like in The Informant though maybe not quite as drastically. Josh Brolin, another Coen alumnus, makes up for Jonah Hex in his rather small but important role. The characters are what makes this movie, and that’s really what makes me love it.

It’s a very good looking movie too. Not many scenes really stand out in this regard, except for perhaps the cabin shoot-out and the arrival of the road-doctor, but it all fits together very well in its familiar settings and makes for an enjoyable view. At this point I can’t really remember much about the sound unfortunately. Maybe it wasn’t that great. Anyway, it’s a really good, simple but enthralling genre piece which I’d put in the top three Coen movies next to The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men.

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