Film True Grit (2010)

[Apostacious]

Excellent remake of True Grit, that imo surpasses the original in terms of direction, acting, pace and design. 5/5 partially because it's one of the only Westerns out there.

 

[emavatson]

A fourteen yrs old girls was superb there and definitely was the hub of that flick with her awesome personality. Drama and adventure was the good combination to bind us there for the whole time .

 

[Bill]

because it could bring back more westerns to the theaters.

Agreed.
I love a good western.

This and The Assassination of Jesse James are two of my latest favorites from the genre.

 

[Wordswords]

yeah, i was a big fan of 'The Assassination.....' as well

 

[Zulkifar]

It's definitely a straight-forward Western so if you don't enjoy that genre you might not like this.

I don't consider myself a fan of Westerns but very much enjoyed this movie. If this movie DOES revive the genre at all I'll definitely keep an eye out. Though if it does start a trend I'm unsure if anything new will outshine this, as from what I've seen, it's usually downhill from there

and i liked watching my husband get all squeamish toward the end of the movie.

LOL as did I (as in I got squeamish, I don't have a husband ha ha). If it's the scene I think you're talking about, Kudos to the Coen Bros for that. Other scenes from movies involving the same thing haven't frightened me in the least.

Main thing that was off-putting for me at first was Matt Damon. I just couldn't picture him in a Western (not that I can really judge I guess, as I'm not generally a fan of the genre) before I saw the movie and while I was watching. But as the movie developed, well, it kinda started to make sense, and he seemed perfectly suited for the character.

That aside, Jeff and Haliee were amazing, amongst others. I know some people who have seen the original and were surprised at how much more they enjoyed this. I'll still end up checking it out sometime myself though.

 

[SubDude]

If you're an old fart and a big John Wayne fan... you probably liked the first better. Mainly because he dominated the movie... even though Kim Darby and Robert Duvall were pretty good. I like Jeff B but JW brought more comedy to the role... especially in the sequel which oddly enough was called... "Rooster Cogburn"... lol.

 

[lostNfound]

Definitely off to see this in the next couple of weeks.

Always been a Jeff Bridges fan.

 

[Zulkifar]

 

[L2R]

4/5

everyone was great, the film was beautiful. i only would have chopped the last little piece out, it was unnecessary and a bit of an anticlimactic fizzle.

 

[Unadjusted]

I was reluctant to see True Grit because I thought it would be a fairly generic Western without anything new to offer but the person I was going to the movies with was keen to see it so I relented. Once I decided to see it I tried to remain positive by telling myself that with the Coen Brothers directing it they might be able to do something fresh with what is a pretty stale genre but unfortunately they didn't. True Grit was standard Western fare which was pretty much everything I expected it to be and there was nothing Coenesque about it. It didn’t have the dark humour and irony of Fargo or the complexity of No Country For Old Men. Overall True Grit was competently made but uninspiring because it didn’t offer anything that we haven't seen a million times before. If you're in the mood for a Western you'd be better off seeing Tombstone or Unforgiven again.

 

[SubDude]

Here's some suggestions of recent 1990+ I tried to leave off othere already mentioned in this discussion. Yea that recent to me... both new and remakes IMO These are not only worth watching once but even a 2nd time when nothing else going on

The Jack Bull
Ride with the Devil
Geronimo: An American Legend
Last of the Mohicans
The Missing
Open Range
3:10 to Yuma

HBO's- Deadwood series

Oldies but goodies

Treasure of Sierra madre
The Shootist
Will Penny
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
The Gunfighter

THE WILD BUNCH was a a breakthrough western regarding authenticity

This isn't new either but it was an excellent series and decent prequel. It might be my favorite western ever

Lonesome Dove


If you are a western fanatic [i am] and haven't seen any of these... don't think you'll be disappointed.

 

[skoat]

If you're an old fart and a big John Wayne fan... you probably liked the first better.

And personally, the original had better moments of levity.

 

[TheDeceased]

The girl in the lead role delivers her lines as convincingly as Katherine Hepburn. The words are fast and confident, but they aren't remotely believable as human speech. There are no nuances to her performance, just a string of words that you wouldn't expect to come out of a little girls mouth. She's unusually confident and a generally unusual girl. That's the basis for almost all of the comedy in this film. It's a Disney-like buddy film focused on the interactions between the aforementioned mini-Hepburn and a very drunk Jeff Bridges.

The plot is typical of your average Western. Revenge. Horses. One dimensional characters. Smelly greasy bad guys with bad teeth. A flawed but lovable hero. Etc. There is nothing inspired or original in this film. I don't understand why the Coen Brothers attempted to remake it.

The pacing is off, especially towards the end where an enormous amount of melodrama is crammed into the last five minutes. The first travelling montage looks like shit, but most of the cinematography/editing is beautiful.

The only thing I liked about this film was Matt Damon and I don't usually like Damon. He stole the show in True Grit in terms of the performances IMO. Nothing spectacular though. Damon's performance doesn't make this film worthy of a watch.

At least it's better than their last remake: The Ladykillers.

Meh. I don't know. It left me completely underwhelmed.

1.5 stars

 

[tambourine-man]

The girl in the lead role delivers her lines as convincingly as Katherine Hepburn. The words are fast and confident, but they aren't remotely believable as human speech. There are no nuances to her performance, just a string of words that you wouldn't expect to come out of a little girls mouth. She's unusually confident and a generally unusual girl. That's the basis for almost all of the comedy in this film. It's a Disney-like buddy film focused on the interactions between the aforementioned mini-Hepburn and a very drunk Jeff Bridges.

The plot is typical of your average Western. Revenge. Horses. One dimensional characters. Smelly greasy bad guys with bad teeth. A flawed but lovable hero. Etc. There is nothing inspired or original in this film. I don't understand why the Coen Brothers attempted to remake it.

The pacing is off, especially towards the end where an enormous amount of melodrama is crammed into the last five minutes. The first travelling montage looks like shit, but most of the cinematography/editing is beautiful.

The only thing I liked about this film was Matt Damon and I don't usually like Damon. He stole the show in True Grit in terms of the performances IMO. Nothing spectacular though. Damon's performance doesn't make this film worthy of a watch.

At least it's better than their last remake: The Ladykillers.

Meh. I don't know. It left me completely underwhelmed.

1.5 stars

I know you're not reading this, but I have to say that I agree with you.

I'm quite amazed that the film has got the plaudits it has. Yes, Bridges was good. Yes, Damon played the role well. Yes, Haliee Steinfeld was suitably precocious... but it didn't make a very good film.

The pacing was all wrong, with some extremely drawn-out sections that did not add to the story being told.

I also felt that parts of the dialogue were badly mangled. This was partly through poor editing (a scene round the campfire is particularly poor), but predominantly due to the extraordinary amount of effort put in to achieve 'quirky' delivery - whether it be the clipped and snappy delivery of Mattie or the refrain from using contractions in speech by the Cogburn character.

In places, it simply didn't work as dialogue - just a group of people delivering lines in the most nuanced way possible. It felt like they were acting. It felt like the Coen's were aware that people regard them as 'doing kooky dialogue'... and kinda felt like they had to deliver it. That isn't how I've felt about other Coen Brother's work.

3 stars. Primarily for the scenery.

 

[AmorRoark]

A couple questions tambo

1. Do you like Westerns as a genre? If so, did you like the John Wayne adaptation?
2. Have you read the book because the Coens didn't really 'write' the dialogue.

 

[tambourine-man]

1. Yes. Never seen.
2. No.

I was heavily under the influence when I watched it, so that may be a factor. :D

Maybe not the dialogue itself (as in, not the written words in the screenplay), but it's delivery. I assumed that the Coens had encouraged the actors to deliver in that slightly affected way - which runs through all their work.

I just didn't think it was a particularly successful transplant into the Western genre.

 

[HeWhoHowls]

I hate John Wayne.
I find him easy to mimic & just an all around flat actor.
But this movie was fucking badass.
It was quite an adventure.
The old one felt more like that long road trip across the desert in your parents shitty stationwagon.

 

[MrGrunge]

4/5

everyone was great, the film was beautiful. i only would have chopped the last little piece out, it was unnecessary and a bit of an anticlimactic fizzle.

Pretty much this. I don't think it was the Coen's best work, but it was definitely a good film (ending excluded).

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

didn't hate watching this movie. i enjoyed it. but for coen brothers movie, damn. what a letdown.

i see a lot of people were fans of the little girl. i didn't like her character. i dislike that smart(ass) kid character in general. TheDeceased's line about her, "just a string of words that you wouldn't expect to come out of a little girls mouth," got a bigger grin from me than anything she says in the movie. matt damon and jeff bridge got an occasional laugh from me. the movie was not unpleasant. just wasn't anything great. or even really good.

maybe i would appreciate it more if i saw the original. there is all kinds of weird stuff that i figure might be commenting on or nodding to the source. maybe trying to maintain the "pulp" feel. like the scene of the horse swimming across the river with the dramatic and inspiring music--that was stupid as fuck. there must be some reason the coen brothers included stuff like that. whatever it is, i do not appreciate.

 

[L2R]

watch the original. your questions will be answered.

i like this more since i saw the original, which is in and of itself a good flick. really surprised me to see dennis hopper, and then again when i read it was the same year as easyrider.