True Grit
(M) 125 minutes, 5/5
Every release by the Coen brothers should be a worldwide event.
This is because Joel and Ethan Coen, the genius architects of O Brother Where Art Thou and Fargo, can offer something so desperately lacking at multiplexes today - beauty, magic, originality.
In the case of True
Grit, the Coens have remarkably improved what was already the essential Western (that
being the 1969 John Wayne showcase) and effortlessly created another hallmark auteur film within such a rigid genre.
Unlike the first adaptation, the Coens' True Grit opens to find rancher Frank Ross dead on the ground, having been gunned down by his scoundrel hired hand, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin).
Chaney has fled deep into Indian territory, with no one to give chase. That is until we meet Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the feisty 14-year-old who arrives in town to collect her father's body and bring his killer to justice.
Delightfully portrayed by newcomer Steinfeld, hard-nosed Mattie needs a bounty hunter with "true grit", a cue call for Jeff Bridges' astounding reincarnation of Wayne's gloriously gruff US marshal, Rooster Cogburn.
Bridges' eye-patched, whiskey-chugging, six-shooting Cogburn seems constructed with fragments of Wayne's own Cogburn, Bridges' washed-up country singer in Crazy Heart - and maybe even a slight smattering of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, the haggard cult character of Bridges' first turn under the Coens.
Matt Damon also shines, as a hammy Glen Campbell failed to in 1969, in the role of Texas Ranger Le Bouef, who joins Rooster and gutsy little Mattie on the hunt for Chaney.
The Coens employ all their signature artistry, from breathtaking photography to quirky Coen-esque humour, amid dense dialogue and an eerie Western atmosphere reminiscent of 2007's No Country For Old Men.
True Grit is up for a swag of Oscars, including, unsurprisingly, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld) and Best Cinematography.
For big Western fans and casual movie-goers alike, True Grit should be an unmissable event. It's the Coen brothers after all.
