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True Grit
Rating: 7/10
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin
Director: The Coen Brothers
Jeff Bridges stars as Rooster Cogburn in this remake of the 1969 Western which originally starred John Wayne.
Cogburn's a one-eyed US Marshall who's charged by Hailee Steinfeld's teenaged Mattie Ross to bring her father's killer, Tom Chaney (Brolin) to justice.
Initially reticent, Cogburn takes on the job - and ends up teaming up with Texas Ranger La Beouf (Damon) who's also tracking Chaney.
The three of them head out on the trail - with Ross determined to make sure Cogburn brings her father's killer home to face justice rather than see him swing in Texas (La Beouf's wishes).
But when Mattie accidentally stumbles across Chaney, the quest suddenly becomes deadly.
True Grit is a straight forward Western, which while sublime in places, in my humble opinion, is nowhere as outstanding as it's been made out to be. (Although I'm probably against the tide on this given the Academy's bestowed it with seven nominations).
Bridges and Damon are good but all in honesty, they're acted off the screen by Steinfeld, whose performance is astoundingly star making. Her Mattie is precocious, head strong and described by one character as "hard as nails". And yet once or twice, when the bravado slips, Steinfeld brings to the role a steely vulnerability and a humanity which it's hard not to warm to - or be impressed by.
Ethan Coen's said that if the kid didn't work in this film, there'd be no film - and he's completely right. Possibly that's some of the division I felt over this - Steinfeld's so good that Bridges and Damon seem merely adequate.
There's some of the usual Coen imagery here in the unexpected - a man wearing a bear skin walks up on a horse, a dead man swings from the trees in a misty forest; it's a film redolent of lasting imagery and sly humour.
And yet, this straight laced, at times slow, tale of 3 people searching for something didn't quite move me as much as I was expecting.
The reason to see True Grit is Steinfeld - she's a star in the making and her part in this film will be the best teen performance you see this year.
