Due to its climbing box office ranking and generally positive reviews, I walked into the 5:10 showing of True Grit with high hopes. About halfway through, the storyline took a dramatic plummet, recovering at a painstaking crawl throughout the rest of an otherwise flawless movie.
A remake of the 1969 film of the same name, True Grit tells the story of hard-headed girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who, at the tender age of 14, embarks on a quest to find and bring Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), a hired hand who killed her father, to justice. After she collects her father’s body in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Ross inquires around the town about hiring a Deputy U.S. Marshal to track down Chaney.
Out of the three available marshals, Ross chooses Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) due to his reputation of being merciless when it comes to justice. Ross attempts to contact Cogburn, who continually dismisses her because he believes she does not possess the $50 hiring fee he requires.
After several tries, Ross is successful at hiring Cogburn and establishes a few mandates for him, such as allowing her to accompany him during the manhunt.
When she returns to the boarding house she is lodging in, Ross comes upon LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who has been pursuing Chaney over the course of several months for the murder of a Texas senator and his dog.
LaBoeuf learns of Ross’s intentions to find Chaney after talking to her, and proposes that he team up with Cogburn due to his knowledge of Chaney’s and Cogburn’s experience with the Indian territory Chaney is currently inhabiting. Ross declines Laboeuf’s offer, mainly because if Laboeuf has his way, Chaney will be hanged in Texas for his prior murder rather than for her father’s.
Ross awakes the next morning fully prepared for the long trek which lays ahead; however, when she reaches Cogburn’s home, she discovers a note which tells her to return to her home and wait for the capture of Chaney. Furious, Ross rushes to the river she knows Cogburn will have to cross to reach the correct territory and fords it on her horse.
Ross finds Cogburn on the other side of the river and discovers he has, in fact, joined forces with LaBoeuf. This infuriates her, but as her luck would have it, Cogburn and Laboeuf fall out soon after this due to the differences in their personalities — where LaBoeuf is wholesome and polite, Cogburn is crude and gritty — which leaves Cogburn and Ross to continue on their journey alone. Over the course of the film, they will meet up several more times.
At this point the movie took an unfortunate turn. The plot became muddled with unexplained characters, seemingly pointless scenes ran rampant and the most odd lines I have ever heard uttered by an actor were spoken profusely.
Despite these issues, True Grit was brilliant. My only other complaint would be that I felt like some of the scenes could have used a little more explanation in them. There were certain points in the movie where I basically had to guess as to what was happening, and although I understood everything pretty well, I felt that some aspects just went over the top of the audience’s heads.
With a packed cast, I felt that the movie really had a perfect ensemble of actors. Surprisingly, the star of the show was not Bridges, as I had thought it would be. I have seen Bridges perform better in many movies such as Crazy Heart and The Men Who Stare at Goats, and thought that his character was a little overdone (his accent was so strong that I failed to understand nearly a quarter of his lines).
Instead, I thought Steinfeld, a girl of merely 14, stole the spotlight from the more experienced and easily recognizable actors. This is the first movie I have seen Steinfeld in, and I thought she was absolutely superb. The way Steinfeld carried herself with her role and around the other actors was simply phenomenal.
I am a huge fan of Joel and Ethan Coen, or the Coen brothers, as they are more widely known, so naturally I found the writing and directing incredible.
Surprisingly, in comparison with the Coen brothers’ previous works, True Grit was incredibly tame with only a few scenes of violence. This might end up helping to boost the movie’s viewing audience from solely adults to teens through elderly citizens. I would not be surprised if the film were to become a cult classic in the coming years due to its interesting story line and brilliant write-up from the Coen brothers.
True Grit is 110 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence, including disturbing images. The movie is currently playing at most local theaters. For tickets and showtimes, visit Fandango.
For more movie reviews, read the Dec. 13 article, ‘Tangled’ twists Brothers Grimm tale.
