With “True Grit,” Joel and Ethan Coen bring their archetypal western storytelling to the screen, lassoing together a leathered tale of spur-jangly redemption and cold-blooded murder, effectively evoking an age of weathered men and stark violence.
The picture is gorgeous, unexpectedly humorous, horrific, and delightfully saddle sore, mustering the precise amount of Coen-askew flourish to accurately place their fingerprints on a well-worn tale.
“True Grit” is a welcome adrenaline shot of widescreen artistry and chewy personality, adding another trophy to the crowded mantle of these filmmaking masters.
“True Grit” is perhaps best known in the form of a 1969’s western starring the inimitable John Wayne as Rooster, a performance that garnered him an Oscar, solidifying his status as a screen legend. “True Grit” delivers the old West with a special Coen curve. With hangings, pandemics, and special attention to unsettling vocal performances, the picture drips with the sort of mischief the directors have patented for themselves, gamely marrying genre formula to their taste for antiheroes and austerity, frequently sold with a dry sense of humor from a serpentine script. The movie is a sublimely unsophisticated revenge picture rooted in stupefying dialogue exchanges, highlighting writing that heads back to Portis for inspiration, erecting a harmonious web of leathery western language that leads to intense debates and cunning confrontation, providing more of a screen jolt than any six-gun showdown.
The oater verbiage is spun into gold by the cast, who keeps up brilliantly in the timing department, making the film, the rare western that displays more confidence with dialogue than violence, keeping characters beautifully defined throughout. As with their finest films, the Coen Brothers achieve a precise sense of hard-bitten ramble in “True Grit,” delivering peculiarity with a cocked response, discovering a story that comfortably contorts to the demands of their imaginations.
The directors show a masterful command of vernacular and fumbled acts of intimidation, refurbishing the Rooster Cogburn saga with an innovative creak, making “True Grit” a genre triumph and one of the year’s best films.
