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Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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True Grit (Film)

by Erin Free | January 24, 2011 13:45 | Edited January 24, 2011 13:46

Driven by pitch-perfect performances and a real sense of reverence for the western, this marks another extraordinary achievement for the Coens.

With the flat-out brilliant western True Grit, Joel & Ethan Coen deliver the kind of film that they've only previously skirted around: a big, grand, elegiac piece of work that sticks to the rules of its genre rather than tipping them on their head. Sure, The Coen Brothers' trademark irony is here, as is their off-the-wall humour, and their uncanny facility for stylistic gear changes. But rather than being the whole point of the exercise (as they were in recent kickers like A Serious Man and Burn After Reading), they are beautifully woven into the fabric of the film here, and form part of its overall texture, instead of standing out for their own sake.

 

As with their truly great Oscar winner No Country For Old Men, The Coen Brothers are once again working from an existing novel, as opposed to their own deranged sensibilities, which serves to curb some of their more hot-wired impulses. Previously adapted in 1969 by Henry Hathaway with John Wayne in the lead role, author Charles Portis' book True Grit is given far more grim and wintry treatment here.

 

Working again with their regular cinematographer, Roger Deakins - a literal genius when it comes to striking, painterly images - The Coen Brothers' visual flair is matched only by their knack for casting and creating rich, indelible characters.    

 

When her father is shot dead, strong willed fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld is nothing short of a revelation, delivering a debut performance full of invention and spitfire sass) doesn't take it lying down. Searching for a man of "true grit" to bring her father's killer to justice, Mattie employs the services of US Marshall Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges in a masterful mix of slumped malevolence and buried-deep decency), a one-eyed, drunken lawman with a propensity for shooting first and asking questions later. Joined by pompous Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon is superb, ingeniously making his character both silly and sympathetic at the same time), they head into the badlands in search of the uncouth villain Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin, who interestingly plays this bad guy as more mean and stupid than evil), who has saddled up with the outlaw gang of Lucky Ned Pepper (a wonderfully florid Barry Pepper).  

 

From its nasty jokes pointing out both the historical and cinematic cruelty routinely dealt out to Native Americans and brief explosions of crunching violence to its poetic, archly literate dialogue, True Grit is a wonderfully rich and beautifully burnished experience.

 

The Coen Brothers' sense of the absurd is a perfect fit for The Old West, with supporting characters both quirky and frothing-at-the-mouth mad, lumbering in and out of frame to dazzling effect.

 

There is also, however, a real sense of reverence for the western at work in True Grit, and when the film's closing scenes wander with rigid purpose into fable-like territory (consciously recalling Charles Laughton's 1955 masterpiece The Night Of The Hunter), The Coen Brothers prove themselves once again to be modern masters of the moving image.

 

No mere cheeky revisionist riff, True Grit is a towering, majestic, unforgettable entry into one of American cinema's mightiest genres.