A remake of a the film which earned John Wayne his only Academy Award, the Coen Brothers’ True Grit makes the most of modern filmmaking technology while remaining faithful to its western roots. Thanks to excellent performances and fine cinematography, the film takes its predecessor out of the studio and into the real world. Wayne’s original may have been considered a classic at the time it was released but this version shows how badly it has aged badly. Both are based on the same 1968 novel by Charles Portis but it has taken until the Joel and Ethan Coen adapted the work to tell the story without any reservation.
Although the brothers did not revise the plot at all, it still follows many of the themes that they established in the middle of the 1990s. Like Fargo and No Country for Old Men, True Grit is an American crime story populated by characters who occupy various shades of the moral spectrum. As usual, nobody, despite their efforts or character, can escape fate.
Rooster Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges, is a U.S. Marshall who employs questionable methods, a role far more morally ambiguous than when played by John Wayne. Bridges shows that Cogburn is a complicated man, as much hero as villain. His past is unknown, his present is totally pathetic, based more on alcoholism than his job, and he may not have a future if he continues like this.
Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross, the protagonist of the film. Ross arrives in Forst Smith, Arkansas, after her father’s murder shocked that nobody is interested in pursuing the killer. She joins with Cogburn and a Texas Ranger LaBoeuf who help her overcome her naivety and she the world in a truer light. Eventually, she avenges her father but sacrifices her integrity, falling into a pit of moral despair and consequently paying a personal price.
Scenes are beautifully shot, capturing a western landscape in winter, as uncaring as the humans who inhabit it. As they have become masters of their craft, the Coens have created more and more iconic imagery, especially still shots as characters disappear into or materialize from the vast wilderness. The soundtrack, meditations based on religious hymns, is very appropriate for the film and the moral decisions which must be made.
For casual Coen fans, the basics are present: surprising moments of brutal violence, black comedy, anti-heroes who inspire both pity and revulsion. True Grit is much more than that, a rare action film that combines style and substance. ***½