True Grit - Oh, Glorious Dust!

review by Tony Freitas
I've never been a fan of the western genre. As a young boy, my brother ruled the roost when the parents were gone for the day,  and Saturdays often consisted of marathon length viewings of dreaded oaters on the old console. I was partial to Godzilla and other films of the nuclear mismanagement ilk, but cowboys were the order of the day, and I was at the mercy of my brother's television whims.   I don't know if my distaste for the genre was there from the beginning or developed over time, but most Saturdays were tv torture. Among those Saturday films were plenty of John Wayne flicks.  I'm sure the orignal 1968 True Grit was screened at one time or another, maybe even more than once, but I don't remember a lick of of it. Maybe I've repressed the memory. Enough of this,  I'll save it for therapy


While the trailer for True Grit 2010 is rousing and arguably one of the best of the year,  my excitement was low level. "But it's the Coen Brothers" I  kept telling myself. Well, finally I broke down and saw the damn thing.  And it is an extraordinary entertainment, even if you have an aversion to the dusty dirt and spur milieu.


The Coen Brothers have fashioned a great entertainment of the kind seldom seen these days,  while retaining their unique askew voice,  evident in every scene and every idiosyncratic characterization. There is still the meanderings and flights of fancy the Coens are partial to, but they've made a disciplined straight-forward film here... and that is not meant as a slight.

For those unfamiliar with the story, 14 year old Mattie Ross's father has been murdered by one Tom Chaney and young Mattie has taken it upon herself to seek retribution against her father's killer. Though advised otherwise, Mattie determines to hire Rooster Cogburn, a drunken, one eyed United States Deputy Marshall, to aid in her quest.  Cogburn may not be everyone's first choice, but Mattie's got a feeling and Cogburn's been described as merciless.  Then along comes Texas Ranger Labeouf, also on the tail of Chaney for a murder that preceded Mattie's father, and the pot is stirred and the Journey begins.


True Grit is an 1880s road movie, closer to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby than Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr.  Horses replace cars,  and thoughtful monologues replace mindless banter (well there is banter, but not the mindless sort). There's plenty of high jinks and adventure but some restitution too.  Jeff Bridges is Bing Crosby, Matt Damon is Bob Hope and it's The Road To Redemption.  The adage "It's the journey not the destination" is never truer than here.


The films opening scene is a long one by current movie standards: Rooster Cogburn testifies in a trial against a ruthless outlaw, one in a long line of lawless men, and the defense team attacks Cogburn as a trigger-happy (somewhere between 15 and 30 killed) short-tempered throw back to an era of Western law thats day has come and gone. " These here is modern times". It's rare to see an extended scene played out like this, simply, with pages and pages of dialogue, but it sets the tone for the film. By the time Cogburn is finished testifying, you know what the man is about, and have an idea of how others perceive him as well.

Young Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross is terrific. At first I found her precocious nature off-putting, but as the film settles in,  and the hightened non-contracted dialogue flows, I finally relaxed into a different era and was completely transported.  The precociousness in fact is emblematic of the times as opposed to Hollywood inserting mature adult words into the mouths of babes for comic effect (I only have to recall that my Grandmother married at 15 and had her first child a year later).  Steinfeld is a real find. Her Mattie is tenacious, hard-headed and determined; a true match for her older alter ego Rooster Cogburn.  Her feature film debut here is auspicious, and one hopes that future career choices will go in the right direction.


Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn is a humorous, sad, pathetic man.  Essentially a hired killer, he carries the burden of every rabid criminal he's every put down just below the surface of his blase' que sera sera facade (wow Spanish and French in the same sentence). Bridges speaks in a mush mouthed drawl as if he's got a half pound of Skoal in his cheek, but if you can't understand what he's saying at times, his weathered face and doleful droopy eyes convey more than words.

Matt Damon as LaBeouf is priceless. Puffed up with an ego the size of the state of Texas, he deflates with the slightest pin prick only to puff up once more before his balloon is inevitably burst again. I think of Damon's character Mark Whitacre in The Informant! so unlikable: wormy, self-loathing, and brainless. I couldn't stand the film.  The performance was irritating, though the character was fully realized. Damon's Labeouf has many of the same qualities.  But here he's loose and relaxed,  pompous and irritating; it's completely endearing and relatable. Everything the previous role was not. Away from the Clooney/ Soderbergh School of Snark as seen in the "Ocean's 11-13" films and The Informant! Damon soars and scores. He's graduated to the Coen's Finishing School For Actors and the Stetson suits him

Joel and Ethan Coen's screenplay, based on the book by Charles Portis, is a beautiful thing. Verbose and formal in all the right ways, darkly funny and compassionate, the writing falls on the ears like music. You remember the tune, but the long-forgotten lyrics seem fresh and exciting and not quite how you remember.


True Grit is also violent, and bleak sometimes.  Like the Old West probably was, I don't know, I wasn't there. The film feels authentic and the performances, heartfelt. Unlike the Coen Brother's "No Country For Old Men" where evil is seen as an unrelenting, incurable disease, there's a welcome balancing of the scales of Good and Evil.  The Coen Calvrey has come to the rescue and made a True Grit that may one day exceed the fond memories of the 1968 "classic". No need to roll over Duke.