The story follows Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld), a fourteen-year-old girl out to avenge her father's muder by tracking down his killer, cowardly outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Chaney has fled into the Indian Territory, a lawless region where desperadoes believe they can hide from the law. Shrewdly regaining money owed to her father, Mattie quickly establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with despite her youth.
She hires a hard-drinking mankiller of a U.S. Marshal named Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, the Dude succeeding the Duke), to help her hunt down Chaney. But another man is also after Chaney, a proud Texas Ranger with a penchant for bragging named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon). Rooster and LaBoeuf join forces to find and capture Chaney, with the implacable Mattie proving her own true grit by going along with them on their dangerous journey.
Just when you thought the Coens had made their career best with the neo-Western No Country for Old Men they make this gem. True Grit is one of the top films of 2010, and can now be added to the ranks of Best Picture Oscar front runners such as Inception, The Social Network, The King's Speech and 127 Hours.
Beautifully directed by the Coens and strikingly shot by Roger Deakins, True Grit boasts a fantastic script (also by the Coens) which, like Deadwood, isn't afraid to have its characters speak in language that is both familiarly twangy to fans of the genre and almost Shakespearean in its formality and strangeness to the modern ear. And no cast member is saddled with more of that challenging dialogue (or nails it better) than Hailee Steinfeld.
Steinfeld is a revelation here. Not since Ellen Page burst onto the scene in Hard Candy has a young actress made such a smashing debut. Steinfeld simply owns the screen from her very first scene, fast establishing herself as a commanding presence to both the other characters and the viewer. She is smart, tough, vulnerable, funny and has range. It will be very intriguing to see where Steinfeld goes from here professionally as she'll most likely earn an Oscar nomination for her performance.
Steinfeld has plenty of high-caliber veterans to play off of here, all of whom are great as well. Bridges is equally riveting as Cogburn, who is almost as self-abusive, funny and lazy as The Dude, but with a fearlessness and violent streak. Colin Firth will have some serious competition in this year's Best Actor race from Bridges, who could likely win his second one in as many years (a win that would be ironic and touching given that Wayne also won for playing Rooster). Bridges is fully his own Old West badass here, with no cute winks or nods to The Duke in his grizzled portrayal.
Matt Damon finds the humor in LaBoeuf (pronounced "LaBeef" and not like the Transformers actor), a man so proud of being a Texas Ranger that he'll gladly remind people of it at every opportunity. But he's also a fiercely determined lawman in his own right, proving as able (if not more so) than the inebriated, sketchy Rooster. (I have to wonder if Damon's Texas accent and portrayal of the vain LaBoeuf isn't a nod to his very accurate imitation of Matthew McConaughey.)
Brolin is certainly better served in this Western than he was in Jonah Hex, and finds both the humor and repellent qualities in his weasely bandit. Barry Pepper (almost unrecognizable behind disfiguring makeup) plays a small but compelling role as outlaw leader Lucky Ned Pepper, the boss of the gang Chaney has fallen in with. Ned has a sense of frontier honor about him, something Chaney most certainly does not. Although Robert Duvall played the role in the original film, Pepper is almost reminiscent at times here of the great character actor Harry Dean Stanton.
My only nitpick about True Grit -- seriously, a nitpick -- is the awkward and very phony-looking visual effect background that's used during a climactic nighttime horse ride that Rooster and Mattie make. It's the film's one false note, the only thing that pulls you out of this otherwise immaculately recreated period and reminds you that you're watching a movie. Otherwise, True Grit -- with its stellar writing, direction, performances, cinematography, and score by Carter Burwell -- is truly great.
4.5 out of 5 Stars, 9/10 Score
