Perfection is hard to achieve and harder still to replicate. Where when you watch or listen to certain things, and they inspire greatness in yourself. For me, watching Barry Sanders highlight videos and thinking “I wish I could do anything as good as the things he could do with a football in his hands” or listening to Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” and thinking “I wish I could create one thing as perfect as that song.” I feel the same way with almost every Coen Brothers movie, and “True Grit” is no exception.
From the first frame to the last frame, they masterfully and beautifully tell a story that is ugly and tough but in the end uplifting. The lighting, the camera, the script the acting are so much above other movies, it is hard to even compare what the Coen Brothers do for a living to what someone like Brett Ratner does for a living. Back 2007, when “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” were both nominated for Best Picture, I wrote a piece stating that they should have capped the Oscars off at two, because even putting a good moving like “Michael Clayton” in the mix with those two was ridiculous. I viewed it as akin to saying (and to borrow a joke from John Mulaney) that your favorite foods are lobster and Skittles. I guess what I am getting at is, the Coen Brothers did it again.
The amazing thing about “True Grit” is that it isn’t just a double-dip for the Coen Brothers. Apart from some of the desert settings, it is nothing like “No Country for Old Men.” Aside for Tommy Lee Jones, there were no “good people” in “No Country for Old Men,” it was mostly bad people doing bad things to each other. “True Grit” has a humanity to it that the Coen’s haven’t showcased in a long time. Even the “bad guys” in “True Grit” aren’t so bad. Sure, they are murders and scoundrels, but they are people and they have rules that they live by and let’s face it, they’re probably weren’t a lot of Saints walking around the old west.
Here is the gist of the story. Mattie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld) goes to town to try and find a Marshall/bounty hunter to bring the murderer of her father to justice. She is a scrappy 14-year-old that, of course, sees a lot of guff but will take none herself. She hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a one-eyed drunk prick who has a penchant for killing those who he is supposed to track down rather than bring them before a court-of-law. Mattie insists in tagging along and on the hunt and they have develop an interesting relationship along the way. (And by releationship, I mean more of a father-daughter-type relationship. They don’t bang, if that is what you are wondering, you pervert.)
Also along for the ride is Texas Ranger LeBeuf (Matt Damon) who, of course, doesn’t really get a long with Mattie or Rooster and might be kind of a puss. Either way, the dialogue between all three is sharp and hilarious. (Favorite line: “This conversation runs the banks of the English language.”)
So, that is the nuts and bolts of the movie, but it hardly does it justice. Nothing in the movie feels forced, there are moments of real tension and heartbreaking disappointment, but in the end it all serves a beautiful purpose. And the way the movie is shot matches that purpose step for step. If “No Country” was shot in a way that was bleak, sparse and desolate then “True Grit” is shot in a way that is hopeful, lively and while not bursting with color, it’s selective use of color will surprise you. There is a scene toward the end of the film where Rooster is running a dusk and the sky behind him is vibrant and there are a millions of stars over his head. Even though something bad is happening, that shot gives you hope. Not to say that it has a “… and they lived happily ever after” type ending, because it does not. But the ending it does have has the perfect amount of humanity and sorrow to leave you satisfied.
So just go see it. It’s great, it should win awards and it’s probably the best Jeff Bridges best performance since “Stick It.”
