On the couch

DVD REVIEW

True Grit *****
Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper

FROM bringing a celebrated novel to the screen, to remaking a 1968 novel that was previously adapted for the screen, the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan seem to have hit upon a rich vein of creativity when it comes to brining their very particular worldview to other people’s work.
Nominated for 10 Oscars, True Grit is a straight revenge flick telling the tale of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailey Steinfeld) whose father is robbed and killed by a wandering worker.
The precocious Ms Ross doesn’t believe her father’s murderer is likely to be brought to justice by conventional means and so employs a bounty hunter to go after the man and guarantee his demise. The man for the job is Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) a rootin’ tootin’ US Marshall recommended to Mattie as being a man with “true grit”.
After a halting start where the prospect of taking a young girl into Indian territory on a manhunt leads to trouble, the pair, joined by Matt Damon’s pompous, blabbermouth Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (pronounced throughout as “LaBeef”) head out into the wild to catch the killer Chaney (Josh Brolin).
As enjoyable as it is to see Jeff Bridges as a whiskey-soaked tough guy and Matt Damon as a priggish Ranger it is the feature debut of young Hailey Steinfeld that steals the show.
Streetsmart and booksmart, Mattie Ross is a massive pain in the ass for everyone except the audience. She outwits business men with her bargaining acumen, outsmarts wily bounty hunters and shows she’s no stranger to true grit herself but never comes across as anything other than a fragile, wide-eyed young girl in a precarious situation.
In the Wild West, the Coens seem to have found a perfect stage for their, for want of a better term, “stagey” language. So perfect, in fact, that the whole thing – or significant chunks anyway – could probably be enjoyed just as well as a play.
It was a time and a place – at least the way Hollywood tells it – where old fashioned edjumacation and the unschooled and barely civilised rubbed up together on a daily basis. Pastors, school marms and businessmen, cow herds, cow pokes and… some other profession that had to do with cows all interacting. Similar to O Brother Where Art Thou?  the situation allows for ample indulgence of the Coens’ penchant for archaic, oddball dialogue and even odder characters who drift in and out of the story with little apparent purpose other than to remind the viewers of the simple strangeness of life..
As is now a standard for Coen Brothers’ movies, no speaking part is ever forgettable or irrelevant and True Grit is no different. Complimenting the extraordinary trio of Bridges, Steinfeld and Damon are the likes of Barry Pepper as the wanted man Ned Pepper, Ed Lee Corbin as the unsettling bearskin-wearing doctor and Paul Rae and Domhnall Gleeson as a pair of outlaws, Quincey and Moon. Every scene is memorable. Every character a minor work of art.
While it is unmistakably a Coens’ flick, True Grit is entirely more direct than a lot of the brothers’ films and is all the better for it. The story thunders along like a freight train but still manages to both sate the thirst of hard core fans for some good ol’fashioned moments of Coen-brand strange and give the impression that it is more character than plot driven.
Most remarkably, in these days of good films outstaying their welcome and tarnishing what could have been a fond memory, the lingering sense as the credits role is “I could’ve watched at least another half an hour of that,” fulfilling that most Hollywood of maxim – “always leave ‘em wanting more”.