If I say "The Dude meets the Duke," out of an honest love of words that look alike, then I will spend all day feeling like a hacky echo. A million reviewers must have been through that one. *sigh*
An unironic Western that only ocassionally gives glimpses of the Coen Brothers' bizarre humourousness, "True Grit" is an exercise in classicism that is more classical in some ways than the John Wayne original. It may be the perfect remake because it is better than the 1969 movie, but doesn't feel the need to shoot its predecessor down and donate it to the vultures in the desert. It's the same Charles Portis story, about a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) who sets out with a drunken Marshal (Jeff Bridges) and a Texas ranger (Matt Damon) to go after her father's murderer (Josh Brolin), except now it's turned into a wholly different, heightened experience; catching the two flicks back to back would cause no fatigue. Although the racial slurs are softened, (no need for John Wayne's line about how no one knows what goes on inside the mind of a Chinaman), the dialogue isn't noticeably different, which is one great reason to admire the way the Coen Brothers' have made it their own. If there's a Coen Brothers trademark I admire, it's not their insular weirdness, but their accentuated use of language and voices, and that's present here, in Matt Damon's proto-snarkiness, Hailee Steinfeld's no-nonsense manifestos, and Jeff Bridges' whiskey-harsh growling.
Although I'm not sure that "True Grit" does anything to FURTHER the Western (can that even be done at this point?) this is still kind of an inevitable, nostalgic romp this year, so you'll end up watching it; if not now, soon.
***
"TRON" meets John (Wayne)? That's not as good!
An unironic Western that only ocassionally gives glimpses of the Coen Brothers' bizarre humourousness, "True Grit" is an exercise in classicism that is more classical in some ways than the John Wayne original. It may be the perfect remake because it is better than the 1969 movie, but doesn't feel the need to shoot its predecessor down and donate it to the vultures in the desert. It's the same Charles Portis story, about a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) who sets out with a drunken Marshal (Jeff Bridges) and a Texas ranger (Matt Damon) to go after her father's murderer (Josh Brolin), except now it's turned into a wholly different, heightened experience; catching the two flicks back to back would cause no fatigue. Although the racial slurs are softened, (no need for John Wayne's line about how no one knows what goes on inside the mind of a Chinaman), the dialogue isn't noticeably different, which is one great reason to admire the way the Coen Brothers' have made it their own. If there's a Coen Brothers trademark I admire, it's not their insular weirdness, but their accentuated use of language and voices, and that's present here, in Matt Damon's proto-snarkiness, Hailee Steinfeld's no-nonsense manifestos, and Jeff Bridges' whiskey-harsh growling.
Although I'm not sure that "True Grit" does anything to FURTHER the Western (can that even be done at this point?) this is still kind of an inevitable, nostalgic romp this year, so you'll end up watching it; if not now, soon.
***
"TRON" meets John (Wayne)? That's not as good!
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Comments
True, but that was more of a romance in the same geographical environment- the "Western" as I picture has action at its core. There's been some attempts to push it in new, "cool", directions- with horrible results, like Jonah Hex, or bizarre ones, like that one Jim Jarmush movie with Johnny Depp whose name evades me at the time. But aside from "True Grit", the only interesting recent Western I can think of is "Unforgiven"- and that goes back almost 20 years!