Its been quite a while since I have seen an authentic western. And after Jeff Bridges got his 2nd nomination for the Oscars in as many years, I was even more keen to watch True Grit. Add to it the fact that it has been directed by Joel & Ethan Coen who have very rarely put a foot wrong in most of the movies that they have given us. The combination was sufficient to get me up @ 7 am on a Saturday morning and make it to the 9 am show @ PVR Phoenix (no they are not paying me for this…. Although I do wish they would). I have to confess that I owe all of you an apology for not having posted a review in a while. Have been bitten by the cricket bug myself and didn’t go the distance to make time for putting my thoughts down for the past 4 days. Having said that, I have finally managed to and intend to get it back on track.
It is 1880 in the WWW – Wild Wild West for the un-initiated . Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fourteen year old who finds herself in a position that most of us would not want to. Her father has just been murdered and she has to collect the body. She may be fourteen, but she is extremely strong minded and not willing to go back till she gets to the bottom of all of this. She packs her father’s body off back home on the train with a message to her mother that she will be back soon. On finding out that her father was killed over a petty fight by a wanted outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who is out scott free, she decides to seek justice. And justice in the WWW follows only one pattern – an eye for an eye. But she also knows that the law will take its own course. If she needs a quick decision, then she needs to find a bounty hunter or a marshall who would do it for some more money (structured corruption makes it legal ). But she doesn’t have any money left with her and so has to use her intelligent ways to wriggle her late father out of a deal that he had made with a local business man and gets enough to hire the services of Reuben J “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) who is said to be a marshall who has “True Grit”. Someone who really doesn’t care much about Outlaws and would rather the world is rid of them. He has to date taken care of 23 of them and is coincidentally being tried for them in a court of law – the WWW version of dealing with Human Rights Violation. He is quite surprised when a spirited fourteen year old approaches him with an offer of a princely sum of $50 – a lot of money at that time – and reluctantly agrees to take up the search for Tom Chaney. The kid wants to join but Rooster gives her the slip and takes off with a Texas Ranger La Beouf (Matt Damon) who is also on the lookout for Chaney for shooting a senator in Texas.
True Grit is about strong performances. You would need to listen to the dialogues extremely closely since they are all in an extremely Southern accent – any further south and it would be Spanish. For most of us, it would be extremely difficult to pick up the heavily accented speech. So listen very carefully or better still watch it somewhere that has sub titles. That however doesn’t change the fact that Jeff Bridges, Matt Daman and Hailee Steinfeld have all come up with scintillating performances to say the least. And most of all Steinfeld, who with an Oscar nomination for her performance as Mattie Ross has come into Hollywood with a bang to say the least. The confidence with which she holds her own in front of two of the best actors of our time is eerie to say the least. What a way to debut I say!!! Jeff Bridges would have picked up the Oscar this time if not for one Colin Firth and another Javier Bardem. That True Grit returned home empty handed from the Oscars can be only explained by the fact that it is a damn good movie but not the best in the 10 categories that it was nominated in. But 7.5 on 10 it is an absolutely must watch. Just watch out for the accents and the pace that could be perceived as slow by some of us.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1984862489/
It is 1880 in the WWW – Wild Wild West for the un-initiated . Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fourteen year old who finds herself in a position that most of us would not want to. Her father has just been murdered and she has to collect the body. She may be fourteen, but she is extremely strong minded and not willing to go back till she gets to the bottom of all of this. She packs her father’s body off back home on the train with a message to her mother that she will be back soon. On finding out that her father was killed over a petty fight by a wanted outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who is out scott free, she decides to seek justice. And justice in the WWW follows only one pattern – an eye for an eye. But she also knows that the law will take its own course. If she needs a quick decision, then she needs to find a bounty hunter or a marshall who would do it for some more money (structured corruption makes it legal ). But she doesn’t have any money left with her and so has to use her intelligent ways to wriggle her late father out of a deal that he had made with a local business man and gets enough to hire the services of Reuben J “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) who is said to be a marshall who has “True Grit”. Someone who really doesn’t care much about Outlaws and would rather the world is rid of them. He has to date taken care of 23 of them and is coincidentally being tried for them in a court of law – the WWW version of dealing with Human Rights Violation. He is quite surprised when a spirited fourteen year old approaches him with an offer of a princely sum of $50 – a lot of money at that time – and reluctantly agrees to take up the search for Tom Chaney. The kid wants to join but Rooster gives her the slip and takes off with a Texas Ranger La Beouf (Matt Damon) who is also on the lookout for Chaney for shooting a senator in Texas.
True Grit is about strong performances. You would need to listen to the dialogues extremely closely since they are all in an extremely Southern accent – any further south and it would be Spanish. For most of us, it would be extremely difficult to pick up the heavily accented speech. So listen very carefully or better still watch it somewhere that has sub titles. That however doesn’t change the fact that Jeff Bridges, Matt Daman and Hailee Steinfeld have all come up with scintillating performances to say the least. And most of all Steinfeld, who with an Oscar nomination for her performance as Mattie Ross has come into Hollywood with a bang to say the least. The confidence with which she holds her own in front of two of the best actors of our time is eerie to say the least. What a way to debut I say!!! Jeff Bridges would have picked up the Oscar this time if not for one Colin Firth and another Javier Bardem. That True Grit returned home empty handed from the Oscars can be only explained by the fact that it is a damn good movie but not the best in the 10 categories that it was nominated in. But 7.5 on 10 it is an absolutely must watch. Just watch out for the accents and the pace that could be perceived as slow by some of us.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1984862489/
Do see the original as well, the one with John Wayne- its a good watch.
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