‘True Grit’ features superb performances from Bridges, Steinfeld

I was floored by True Grit, the new Western from that undeniably talented team of Joel and Ethan Coen. I was expecting a movie that paid homage to the classic John Wayne film from which it’s based. Instead, what I found was a touching fable with lush imagery and stellar performances.

Oscar winner Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart, Seabiscuit) plays Rooster Cogburn, a disheveled U.S. marshal whose world is filled with alcohol and cussing. He lives in the back room of a Chinese restaurant and wears a patch over his eye. Movie fans will recognize the character from John Wayne’s famous Oscar-winning turn as Rooster in the 1969 original. Bridges takes the role and makes it his own, imbuing the character with a slovenly rich sense of insularity: He’s a man in this world, but not of it.

He meets his match when a young girl by the name of Mattie Ross (the great Hailee Steinfeld) comes into town to contract his services and catch the man who killed her father. If there was one downside to the original True Grit it was the semi-annoying performance of Kim Darby as Mattie. She felt too Disney to be in a cutthroat Western. In the Coen brothers’ remake, Steinfeld gives the role justice. She matches every adult she converses with toe to toe, lip to lip. She’s barely a young woman, yet she demands attention and respect, refusing to be disregarded as a child looking for her father.

After some convincing, Mattie is able to persuade Rooster to head out into Indian territory and look for Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who shot her father. Tagging along is LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a tracker from down south who has his own bone to pick with the killer.

Throughout this entire melee, Roger Deakins’ beautiful cinematography can be seen everywhere. The United States never looked so picturesque. The Coens also prove to be able directors and writers, adapting the entire movie from Charles Portis’ original novel (many scenes from this remake mimic scenes from the original movie as well).

What could have been a crash-and-burn attempt at cinematic homage, similar to Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho, instead is one of the best Westerns to come out in years. It’s as good as Open Range and Unforgiven, and will likely linger in the minds of audience members for some time.

• True Grit

• 2010
  

• Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

• Starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin

• Running time: 110 minutes

• Rating:

Revised