Climbing Higher Pictures

The Coen Brothers just make good movies. No Country For Old Men was a phenomenal piece of dark, gripping cinema. Burn After Reading was a completely off the wall comedy. A Serious Man split the genre’s down the middle. When it was announced that they would be remaking the John Wayne classic True Grit, the industry responded with a mutual… “Huh?” Then they cast Jeff Bridges, and people were still confused. Then Jeff Bridges won the Academy Award. Now, we get it. Can this western remake rise above it’s classic predecessor and become one of the greats of its genre, or is it about two decades too late?

True Grit Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie: A

Jeff Bridges… is a boss. It’s actually a shame that he won the Academy Award last year for Crazy Heart, as it makes him a virtual impossibility for a repeat this season, despite this being an incredible performance that stands among the best of his career. Rooster Cogburn is a force of nature, a grizzled veteran of a hundred gunfights and a thousand bullets. As with Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, this is a man who won’t die from a pistol, and who is destined to become a piece of classic cinema history. For anyone who still has doubts, let it be known that betting against the Coen Brothers does not pay. They haven’t even come close to slowing down, and I couldn’t be more excited for what they tackle next.

True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old daughter of a murdered man. She sets out to avenge his death and employs a washed up US Marshal in the search. It’s incredibly straightforward, and that’s what makes the Coen Brothers’ approach so fun. They know the scene you’re expecting to see, and they deliver it, but simultaneously comment on the way such a scene would normally play out in a western. The dialogue is tremendously entertaining and the level to which it plays with the genre is akin to a masterful jazz riff. This is a western, through and through, but it is also a Coen Brothers western, and I didn’t know what that would mean until I witnessed it. The result is a beautiful and awe inspiring spectacle of a film, courtesy of master cinematographer Roger Deakins, and a script that was actor proof, even without a series of impeccable supporting performances.

I think the thing that struck me most was how enjoyable the film was to watch. The Coens have been known for creating dark, deeply moving cinema that can, at times, be hard to take. Their love of violence not withstanding, they enjoy wrenching at the viewer’s heartstrings and dragging them through hell on their way to a brutally executed finale. Here, however, you never felt like the choices were designed to hurt, more that they existed to increase the emotional punch of a character’s success. You root for the film, never against it, and there’s a weird positive feeling throughout that registers as purest form of entertainment. This is a film that you love to watch, and will inevitably love to watch again, and I know plenty of people who can not say the same for movies like No Country for Old Men. It resonates the way classic westerns do, and I can’t think of a better compliment.

What else is there to say? It’s great. Everything you’d hope a Coen Brothers western would be. Jeff Bridges is phenomenal. Matt Damon is actually quite impressive in his supporting role, and Hailee Steinfeld will certainly be one to watch as she gets older. The shots are extraordinary, the pacing is incredibly tight (I could’ve watched the film for another two hours at least) and the intense sequences were so incredible that the quieter in-between moments never felt self-indulgent. It would be a shame to not include this film on any Top 10 list this year, and should it fail to gain an Oscar nomination I will be very disappointed. It is said, however, that awards tend to reward performers and creative personalities who go beyond their comfort zone, and this is so clearly a bull’s-eye for the Coens that they may not get recognition simply due to how perfect of a fit the story is. Now wouldn’t that be ironic. With that, the fall season comes to a close. See you in March when there’s more film’s worth reviewing.