True Grit: Truly damn good

True Grit (2010)


Ratings:


WW (Wild Western indeed)
GG (very realistic)
FFF1/2

Westerns, like horror and some sci-fi, allows filmmakers to tackle  issues they can't or won't in standard dramas.

Vengeance in the hands of a very literate, strong-willed 14 year old girl who bears a far better grasp on legal issues than some lawyers? Given the frontier justice attitude, you can forgive little Mattie  Ross for being smarter than everyone around her.

She certainly proves she has true grit, as do her reluctant male companions as they hunt down Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father.

Westerns rule when done right, characterization is pushed to the forefront and the environment is as much a character as Mattie, the cantankerous, drunken, quickdraw Ruben "Rooster" Coburn (Jeff Bridges who steals just about every scene he's in), and the almost-as-funny and talkative Texas Ranger LeBeef (a nearly unrecognizable Matt Damon).  


Bridges and Damon were great fun when shooting out bullets or barbs at  one another. The two men have fine character arcs, but Mattie remains  headstrong and unchanged despite the things she is forced to do. Miss Steinfield deserved her Oscar nod, but Jeff Bridges should have won Oscar #2. 

A most pleasant surprise was Ed Lee Corbin's Dr. Forrester: I won't ruin part of the reason why I loved him instantly, but he was fabulous. I hoped he'd return later in the film, but his scene was the sole  moment I was not captivated by Mister Bridges awesome, cranky Marshall.

Josh Brolin was great too.

The only downside to the film was the epilogue with the adult Mattie. Pretty useless as the film truly "ended" before this scene. I am also grateful the religious hymn theme song was kept to the credits. Thank goodness, when I heard that awful wailing in the trailer, I prayed this wouldn't turn out to be another Keoma (in which an awesome western is nearly destroyed by god awful folksy-relgious howling). Thankfully, the Coen Brothers spared us.  

True Grit reminds me of why I love westerns, and gives me hope that character and story still do matter in Hollywood.


* Props to the Coens for making the violence in this PG-13 film very realistic and unsettling. Matt Damon did one hell of job with his self-induced injury. This movie did NOT feel like a PG-13 film at all which is awesome in itself. It is very much a Coen Brothers movie. 


** And 100 points to whomever invented just why Rooster is as mean, violent and ornery as they come. His backstory concerning Rooster's ties to Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson was a stroke of genius.