The Coen brothers’ remake of the 1969 John Wayne film (based on Charles Portis’s novel of the same title), True Grit is a Western adventure, with a spunky 14-year-old heroine, Mattie (Oscar-nominated Hailee Steinfeld), who seeks the help of a drunken notorious Deputy U.S. Marshall (Jeff Bridges, weirdly nominated for his role) to capture her father’s killer (Josh Brolin). They gallop into the Choctaw terrain, teams up with a Texas Ranger, LaBeouf (Matt Damon), for an adventure that would have been almost mediocre if it weren’t for the excellent performance of Steinfeld and the beautiful, heart-wrenching music of Carter Burwell, which plays significantly in the storytelling.
With their last year’s frustratingly pretentious bad dark comedy, A Serious Man, the Coen brothers were able to redeem themselves this year. True Grit (bagging a handful of Oscar nominations, including Best Picture) is an engaging adventure, oftentimes humorous; its substance mostly centered on Mattie’s spitfire personality and her chemistry with Bridges and Damon. Despite Bridges’s highly annoyingly incomprehensible slurs, the beauty of this film lies in its simple, unpretentious story structure of your regular Western, and the rich characters-- all encompassed by Burwell’s poignant music. A refreshing cinematic experience. B
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