November 9, 2014

Movie Night: True Grit (2010).


Review #659: True Grit (2010).

Cast
Jeff Bridges (Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn), Hailee Steinfeld (Mattie Ross), Matt Damon (LaBoeuf), Josh Brolin (Tom Chaney), Barry Pepper (Ned Pepper), Domhnall Gleeson (Moon), Bruce Green (Harold Parmalee), and Ed Lee Corbin (Bear Man) Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.

Review
I knew that one day I'd eventually watch a film by the Coen brothers, it wasn't intentional for it to be almost four years after this show started, it just happened that I didn't. But now I'm rectifying a mistake, in a sense, and with a recent Coen movie, which just happens to be True Grit. Based off the 1968 novel by Charles Portis, True Grit attempts to be like its namesake and succeeds. What I like about the movie is Jeff Bridges. He is so interesting to watch in this role, even at Cogburn's lowest point, Bridges manages to be so effective at making you feel empathy for him, and it's just so fun to watch him interact with nearly any actor in this film. Steinfeld is really effective at playing such a hardened child, it's interesting to watch the movie from her perspective and watch her progression throughout the movie. The rest of the cast is good, I like how Matt Damon practically blends into the role, and his interaction with Bridges is pretty fun to see. One of my favorite scenes is a scene with an actor who is the movie for only one scene, and that is Ed Lee Corbin...as a Bear Man. Watching him act while wearing a bear suit while talking to Bridges is really amusing and oddly memorable. The movie is a tale more about the journey and the progression of revenge on a person than the revenge itself (Brolin is only in the last half of the movie), I like how gritty the movie can get, I especially like how well made the movie is, there isn't a scene in the movie that is badly made. This is a movie with many redeeming features, two of them being Bridges and Steinfeld, who really make the movie even better. The fact that it runs under two hours probably isn't a selling point for most, but I'll use it solely because sometimes a Western can be a breeze to go through. But hey, watch it for Bridges. Or the Bear Man.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

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