This trailer was taken from: “True Grit” Trailer HD (Video). October 06, 2010. Retrieved January 02, 2011,
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUiCu-zuAgM
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUiCu-zuAgM
True Grit
Written and Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin
The Coen Brothers are among the most respected American filmmakers currently working. With films such as The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men people go into a Coen brothers film expecting greatness. They are also know for their violent and wacky works of dark comedy with A Serious Man and Burn After Reading being their two most recent films. True Grit is a remake of the film that got John Wayne his Oscar and stars Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, a U.S marshal with…True Grit.
The star of True Grit is undoubtedly Hailee Steinfeld. She plays Mattie Ross, a young girl whose father has been shot dead by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and she is hell bent on revenge. As Mattie Hailee Steinfeld delivers a mature and engaging performance, stealing the show from veterans Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon. She deserves a lead actress nomination at the Oscars for her work and if it weren’t for Natalie Portman in Black Swan, it would be my lead actress performance of the year. In terms of the rest of the cast Bridges gives a good performance, however he isn’t as explosive as many were hoping and a lot of his dialogue is hard to understand, one cannot help but feel it is a rather one note performance. Speaking of the dialogue this film is fantastically written and the Coen brothers have written another superb screenplay. The combination of their graceful and rather poetic dialogue mixed with the speech of their actors, True Grit is a film that sounds fantastic.
Roger Deakins has been a Coen brothers regular, providing all their films with fantastic cinematography. True Grit may be the best cinematography I have seen in a Coen brother’s film. The vast western landscapes look absolutely gorgeous and Deakins should take home an Oscar this year that has eluded him for so long, infact it is rather telling that the cinematography stood out so much, as if the journey wasn’t engaging enough, infact the film starts to go downhill for me when their journey begins. Carter Burwell provides the film with some fantastic music, which like the dialogue manages to be graceful and poetic. Graceful and poetic are words you do not usually hear when discussing a Coen brother’s film. True Grit does not feel like a Coen brothers film in the slightest and I can imagine a lot of their fans being taken aback by the films nature. It is not wacky or quirky and it does not feature an excessive amount of over the top violence. True Grit is the Coen brothers most accessible and mainstream film, whether that is a positive or a negative depends on how much you like their style of cinema.
For the first twenty minutes I was loving the film and was prepared for something great. I liked the fact that the Coen brothers were dialing back and providing something different from their usual body of work. However as the film goes on, it starts to run out of steam and gradually become more dull and underwhelming as it builds up to an incredibly anticlimactic, rushed and mishandled climax. The film has a definitive ending, something the Coen brothers have not provided in a while, however the way in which the ending is handled, apart from perhaps the last line is rather disappointing considering what preceded it. I cannot go into my specific problems with the ending without spoiling it, however as a slight hint to those who have seen it, the appearance of a new actor in the final scene for me derails the great performance we had grown to love over the course of the film.
True Grit is a strange film for me as I appreciate that it is well made and I was blown away by Hailee Steinfeld’s performance, loved how the film looked, marveled at some of the dialogue exchanges and enjoyed the graceful score however in the end the film did not grab me the way it should of done and as I was hoping. It is also worth noting the film has plenty of moments of dark humour as you would expect from the Coen brothers however for a film called True Grit this is a film that lacks grit. I never really felt in danger while watching the film and when the villainous Tom Chaney is finally encountered in a rather clumsy manner, the performance of Josh Brolin is rather wasted on a character that isn’t given enough screen time to make an impact and like the film is billed as something that it is not. Ultimately True Grit is a well-made film that just didn’t hit me anywhere. Hailee Steinfeld gives a knockout performance however Bridges and Damon’s bickering, while amusing at first, much like the film gets tedious eventually.
True Grit is not your typical Coen brother’s film and while I do not see that as a negative, I felt this film could of done with a bit more edge in order to make me feel something I struggled to feel. Steinfeld, Deakins and Burwell are the true stars of a film that is truly well made…but lacks some grit.
One Sentence Summary: A graceful and well-made film with a superb performance from Steinfeld, however it slowly loses steam and ends up as a rather underwhelming experience.
Rating: 7-/10
The star of True Grit is undoubtedly Hailee Steinfeld. She plays Mattie Ross, a young girl whose father has been shot dead by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and she is hell bent on revenge. As Mattie Hailee Steinfeld delivers a mature and engaging performance, stealing the show from veterans Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon. She deserves a lead actress nomination at the Oscars for her work and if it weren’t for Natalie Portman in Black Swan, it would be my lead actress performance of the year. In terms of the rest of the cast Bridges gives a good performance, however he isn’t as explosive as many were hoping and a lot of his dialogue is hard to understand, one cannot help but feel it is a rather one note performance. Speaking of the dialogue this film is fantastically written and the Coen brothers have written another superb screenplay. The combination of their graceful and rather poetic dialogue mixed with the speech of their actors, True Grit is a film that sounds fantastic.
Roger Deakins has been a Coen brothers regular, providing all their films with fantastic cinematography. True Grit may be the best cinematography I have seen in a Coen brother’s film. The vast western landscapes look absolutely gorgeous and Deakins should take home an Oscar this year that has eluded him for so long, infact it is rather telling that the cinematography stood out so much, as if the journey wasn’t engaging enough, infact the film starts to go downhill for me when their journey begins. Carter Burwell provides the film with some fantastic music, which like the dialogue manages to be graceful and poetic. Graceful and poetic are words you do not usually hear when discussing a Coen brother’s film. True Grit does not feel like a Coen brothers film in the slightest and I can imagine a lot of their fans being taken aback by the films nature. It is not wacky or quirky and it does not feature an excessive amount of over the top violence. True Grit is the Coen brothers most accessible and mainstream film, whether that is a positive or a negative depends on how much you like their style of cinema.
For the first twenty minutes I was loving the film and was prepared for something great. I liked the fact that the Coen brothers were dialing back and providing something different from their usual body of work. However as the film goes on, it starts to run out of steam and gradually become more dull and underwhelming as it builds up to an incredibly anticlimactic, rushed and mishandled climax. The film has a definitive ending, something the Coen brothers have not provided in a while, however the way in which the ending is handled, apart from perhaps the last line is rather disappointing considering what preceded it. I cannot go into my specific problems with the ending without spoiling it, however as a slight hint to those who have seen it, the appearance of a new actor in the final scene for me derails the great performance we had grown to love over the course of the film.
True Grit is a strange film for me as I appreciate that it is well made and I was blown away by Hailee Steinfeld’s performance, loved how the film looked, marveled at some of the dialogue exchanges and enjoyed the graceful score however in the end the film did not grab me the way it should of done and as I was hoping. It is also worth noting the film has plenty of moments of dark humour as you would expect from the Coen brothers however for a film called True Grit this is a film that lacks grit. I never really felt in danger while watching the film and when the villainous Tom Chaney is finally encountered in a rather clumsy manner, the performance of Josh Brolin is rather wasted on a character that isn’t given enough screen time to make an impact and like the film is billed as something that it is not. Ultimately True Grit is a well-made film that just didn’t hit me anywhere. Hailee Steinfeld gives a knockout performance however Bridges and Damon’s bickering, while amusing at first, much like the film gets tedious eventually.
True Grit is not your typical Coen brother’s film and while I do not see that as a negative, I felt this film could of done with a bit more edge in order to make me feel something I struggled to feel. Steinfeld, Deakins and Burwell are the true stars of a film that is truly well made…but lacks some grit.
One Sentence Summary: A graceful and well-made film with a superb performance from Steinfeld, however it slowly loses steam and ends up as a rather underwhelming experience.
Rating: 7-/10
