True Grit (4/5 Stars)

Papa Ross must have been one hell of a man.

It’s a good thing. Joel and Ethan Coen have now made four movies in as many years. Earlier in their career it always took them two or three years to string together a movie. This was because they always insisted on Creative Control and made movies that never made a lot of money. But that has changed. The word has gotten out that the Coens make good movies. They may be oddball at times but always good. I would suspect that people going to see True Grit (which is the Coens highest grossing movie ever) aren’t going because they fondly remember the original 1969 version or the book it was based upon or even the stars (Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon). I would suspect they are interested because it is a Coen Brothers movie. There are some filmmakers that plain don’t suck. The Coen Brothers are a couple of them.

It is an unwritten rule of the Coens that each movie they do should be unlike any movie they’ve already done. “True Grit” is no exception. It is purely Coenesque in that it isn’t. Get it? It’s an outright Western. It stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl out to avenge the death of her father by the hands of an outlaw named Tom Chaney, played by Josh Brolin. She sets out to hire a U.S. Marshall to go after Chaney. Given a list of names, she decides upon the roughest one, a man by the name of Rooster Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges. He is a man of True Grit, a whiskey guzzling grizzly bearded cantankerous itchy-trigger fingered old fool. A real character as they say. Jeff Bridges, aka The Dude aka the most comfortable actor in the world, is the perfect casting choice for the role. Also on the trail of Chaney for a completely different murder is a Texas Marshall named LeBeef, played by Matt Damon. Damon plays the role as if he's never seen a Western. Here, he’s striking surprised and neurotic nuances that rarely come from cowboys. Then again his character has to deal with Mattie Ross, one of the smartest and most confident girls ever to exist in a western. She’s throwing everyone for a loop here. That includes the bad guys too, both Tom Chaney and the Pepper Gang, led by none other than Mr. Pepper, played appropriately by Barry Pepper with the help of a really nasty set of dentures. Chaney by the way is one of this year’s stupidest sounding bad guys. Brolin plays the guy as if he’s more likely to use a book as toilet paper than read it. He murdered Papa Ross for the stupid sum of two gold pieces. There are no qualms about going to kill him.

“True Grit,” is true to its name in that it has a lot of grit, but let it be known that this movie is also very funny. It’s not a Comedy mind you, but most of the characters are what you would call witty and their different styles make conversation a minefield of quick insults and comedic insights. Cogburn is blunt, abrasive, and clumsy. Mattie is saracastic and a smart-aleck. Damon seems to have self-esteem problems, which regularly pokes holes into his Texas Ranger Pride. They spend most of the time on the trail arguing with each other. Mattie regularly gets the best of Damon. Damon picks on Cogburn. And Cogburn, well he’s got a bottle of whiskey and will not be ashamed.  All of this is done in 19^th Century Western talk, which is different but still decipherable if you listen closely.

Here’s a good question: Is the character Mattie Ross realistic? Forget that she’s a girl. What fourteen year old do you know, boy or girl, can intelligently discuss areas of the law with adults, negotiate deals with horse traders and bounty hunters, or have the confidence and wherewithal to hunt down their father’s killer upon their own initiative. What were you doing at the age of 14? Parents back then must have expected a bit more pluck and self-reliance from their kids, that and Papa Ross in particular must have been one of hell of a educator. Give credit to her church as well. Most of her righteous confidence comes straight from the Bible, which she quotes many times. Anyway, someone somewhere did something right.

“True Grit” isn’t one of the best movies of the year, but it is a good one and may get some Oscar nominations simply because it does an extremely competent job at being good. It would not surprise me if the Coen’s longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins got his 9^th Oscar nomination or if the movie itself got a Best Picture nomination. Don’t ask me if this is better than the original movie because I haven’t seen it.