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True Grit (2010)
 
Review
The Coen brothers strip it down in this
adaptation of the Charles Portis novel - a remake of a 1969 John Wayne
vehicle. In the Coens' version, the Oklahoma setting is cold and grey,
and 14-year-old Mattie Ross is the focal point. She's an industrious and
thick-skinned kid out to avenge her father's murder, hiring Rooster
Cogburn, a hard-nosed drunkard of a marshal, to help her.
The film is a classical western, one of
the Coen brothers' most out-and-out genre films. It is neither a homage
nor a retrospective effort, but simply a pragmatically told story. The
film has a likeable, earnest quality to it which probably will satisfy
seasoned viewers and western enthusiasts, but at the same time, it is so
unbaked that it almost borders on the counterproductive. There are some
poetic elements in compositions and characterisations (for instance, the
likes of Rooster Cogburn is conveyed in a slightly romantic light), but
the storytelling is so plain that without the thematic explosiveness of
No
Country For Old Men, True Grit never really takes
flight and becomes as absorbing as the onset promises. For that, the
characterisations remain too superficial and the performances suffer
from it, even if all the actors are well cast.
Jeff Bridges' Rooster
Cogburn, for instance, never becomes more than an accomplished
caricature, and the relationship between him and the girl (well played
by Hailee Steinfeld) doesn't evoke the emotion it should have. The Coens
simply don't give their lead actors enough to work with. And with an
exceptionally tame epilogue on top of that, True Grit remains a
somewhat barren albeit technically accomplished film.
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