• “True Grit,” Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Paramount Pictures, 110 minutes, Released Dec. 22, 2010.
“They tell me you’re a man with true grit,” Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) says to U.S. Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges).
She is on the hunt for a man, a real man, a man willing to pursue the outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and bring him back to hang for her father’s murder. And she’s offering a handsome reward in cash.
The only problem? The brigand fled into trackless Indian Territory, and she wants to go along to supervise his capture. And she won’t take no for an answer.
“True Grit” (directed by Joel and Ethan Coen) explores the true meaning of courage as two men and a young girl ride into the wilderness in search of a killer, on a grueling adventure that will change their lives forever.
We’re introduced to plucky Mattie Ross shortly after her father’s death, gunned down by Chaney outside of a boardinghouse in Fort Smith. Many in the town assume that a 14-year-old settler girl without a protector is an easy mark, free to be cheated or sidetracked. A cunning horse trader soon finds out differently when the coolly confident Mattie threatens him with legal action if he won’t give her a fair price for the newly-purchased horse team her father no longer needs.
The local law enforcement also clashes with the strong-willed girl. They have given up on catching Chaney — he has escapted into wild Indian Territory, and is deemed uncatchable. Mattie is intent on having her father’s killer brought to justice, however, and cuts a deal with the reprobate old U.S. Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down the murderer and bring him home to face trial.
The matter soon is complicated by the arrival in town of Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who brings word of a large reward for Chaney’s return in Texas, where he shot a state senator some time before. Cogburn and the ranger join forces to return the criminal where they stand to gain the most reward, but Mattie will have none of it. She hired Cogburn, and she will not sit by quietly as he rides out of town with her money and no guarantees — she intends to see justice done herself. She soon catches up with the departing duo and forces them to take her along or else leave her in the wilderness alone.
Both men are proud of their reputation as tough lawmen and their record of dangerous men killed or returned the settlements to hang. But after a very few days on the trail, their true characters begin to come to light. The marshal is rarely sober, and his shooting is unreliable in a crisis. LaBeouf’s pride is dangerous when crossed — he lays hands on Mattie at one point, forcing the marshal to pull a gun on him.
The two men waste time and supplies trying to prove their macho superiority over each other. And Cogburn keeps getting distracted by old scores and personal vendettas as they ride deeper into the wilderness. The journey will expose each one’s faults — as they are tested in the days ahead they must show a truer form of courage than heretofore if they are to survive to make the settlements once again.
Violence in “True Grit” is ever-present and extremely visual, and while some of it is integral to the plot, there are several extraordinarily gratuitous scenes, with gory images that won’t soon fade. Language and occasional racism may also be a problem for many parents — the Coens pull no punches in establishing the setting of their tale.
Westerns are usually gritty. But this one seems to bathe in the darker corners of the genre: fingers chopped off, men knifed and hung, brains and blood spattered by bullets, impromptu surgery performed and injured horses coolly shot. While there is little in the plot that a 12-year-old might not understand, wise parents would do well to consider the impact these all-too-memorable images will have on their children and maybe even their teens.
A surprising counterpoint to the language and violence is the religious content of the film. While retaining a cynical, self-reliant tone through the film as a whole, True Grit has several devout characters and much religious imagery.
This remake of the 1969 “True Grit” starring John Wayne has a lot of flaws, but taken as a whole is a quite watchable modern Western. The cinematography, although drab, is stunning, and the intricate folk-hymn soundtrack is on my wish list as soon as it is released. The gun violence is believable, albeit extremely gory and sometimes over the top–this may be a dealbreaker for many families.
The Coens’ trademark black humor and the story’s focus on bitterness, revenge, and the settling of old scores, however, color an otherwise successful tale of courage, perseverance, and justice on the old frontier. Several changes to the ending of the film — making it diverge from both the 1969 version and the original novel by Charles Portis — contribute to that cynical tone. I don’t expect to be watching this new take on the old classic again anytime soon.