Good remake

14-year-old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) enlists the help of U.S Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to help her track down her father’s killer. Mattie insists that she accompany Cogburn and Texas Ranger Labeouf(Damon) on the journey to capture the group of fugitives.

The Coen Brothers had a daunting task to live up to the 1969 original, but for the most part they do it justification. There remake is very similar in style and layout to the original. The Coen’s manage to stick to the Grit and the odd blend of comedy and drama that the original displayed. They do a fantastic job and a much better job of capturing the landscapes then the original did. There was a much better atmosphere in this one then in the original.

Another thing that the Coen brothers were able to do was grab much more dynamic performances from their supporting cast. Damon added a new layer to the character of Labeouf, originally played by Glen Campbell. This time around Labeouf played a significant role, he didn’t seem as expendable and annoying as the original. Damon throughout the beginning sequences of the film plays the character as mysterious but as the film goes on he makes the character human. In the original Labeouf seemed to be forgotten, but the Coen brothers seemed to beef (pun intended) up the role for such a talented actor like Matt Damon.

Even if you were completely impressed by the original, as I was when I watched barely a week before checking out the new one, you must admit one thing, and that is Hailee Steinfeld does a much better job in the role of Mattie Ross then Kim Darby did. Darby was close to twenty playing a 14 year old, Steinfeld however was the exact age of 14 when she made this film. Darby had nearly 6 years to gain the maturity and the practise to play a young character, Steinfeld however channelled her young emotions and gave the best performance of the film.


It would be easy to sit here and say John Wayne or Jeff Bridges did a better
job. The thing is I will not do that, they both played the same character and they both did a good job. Bridges has more of an accent then Wayne did in the original but that does not make him better. These films are too similar for one to stand above the other. In both films Cogburn was a drunk, very indecisive about allowing Mattie to accompany him, and both films captured that almost perfectly. I’m not here to say one of these actors is a better actor, both have proven themselves countless times and both Rooster Cogburn performances will go down in the books as stellar performances.

The Coen brothers have a knack for writing quality scripts and they do that once again, but they have one major flaw in this one that needs to be addressed. The ending was very different from the original and not in the way that helps make the film better. The original may have had a bit of a cheesy ending, but I was hoping the Coen brothers would have had something similar to that just maybe taking out the cheesy bits. To go where the Coen brothers went with this made no sense; it was a storyline all in itself that really did not need to become part of the films message. Steinfeld gave such a good performance that the Coen brothers should have given her the chance to conclude a film she shines so bright in.


There is a very good chance that the Coen brothers will get a nomination for best adapted screenplay, and it is deserved, but True Grit is not the best film of 2010. It is a good remake, with a solid cast. The Cast deserves the accolades more than the whole film. As an entire film there have been better, but if the academy wants to recognize the wonderful performances from this film from Steinfeld and Damon then I will not argue with that.


A very enjoyable and engaging remake, but honestly not the best from the Coen brothers. True Grit was the most predictable film yet from the Coen brothers and did not stray in any way from the direction in which you saw it going. True Grit carries heavy set emotions which are very well portrayed, but a lot of the action and the scenes are too predictable. The action scenes seem to die right when they are getting going, or are over way too soon. This is a western and from Westerns I expect a lot of confrontation but there was very little action, and all of it was predictable.


7/10