True Grit

Viewed: Theater

I love the Western genre — books and movies. I always have. I’ve read more Louis L’amour books than I can count. One of the first DVDs I ever bought was The Magnificent Seven.

The last modern Hollywood Western I saw was 3:10 to Yuma, and I was not impressed. I’ve seen the first True Grit film one and a half times, and I was not impressed with it, either. But there were parts in the first TG that I thought had great potential for epic awesome.

This latest film is not a remake of the first film, it’s an new adaption of the original book. Now, I haven’t read the book — I only recently learned True Grit was first a book — so my opinion of the film is solely based on the films themselves.

This new True Grit film, I absolutely love! This movie reached the epic awesome that the first tried for.

The first thing that awed me about it was the language. The prose with vocabulary just makes my brain all warm and fuzzy.

The acting is top notch. Jeff Bridges is perfect for the role of Rooster Cogburn. I dare say hes a better Rooster than John Wayne was — and I love The Duke. And Hailee Steinfeld gives a fantastic performance as Maddie Ross.

The cinematography is amazing. One of the things I love about Westerns is the wide openness of the frontier. This movie presents that scenescape enough to make an agoraphobic fitful.

The only issues I have with the movie are things that I understand actually come from the book, the source material. Like Tom Chaney instructing Maddie to cock her pistol fully. That kind of thing jolts me — why in the hell would you tell someone how to cock the gun they’ve got aimed at you? But since the whole plot doesn’t rely on these kinds of little quirks, I can get over them quickly and keep in the story.

Overall, this is a great movie. I’ll buy it on DVD when it comes out, and I’ll keep it on my shelf between The Magnificent Seven and Open Range.

During the credits, the theater staff folks came in and started cleaning up. I asked one if there was a scene after the credits, and they said no.

Bullgrit