True Grit (2010)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 110m
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper
Synopsis:
A plucky farmgirl from Arkansas travels north to settle the affairs of her father, killed by a drunken hand, and hires a US marshal to pursue the culprit into Indian territory. They are joined by a Texas Ranger, on the same trail for differing reasons.
Review:
A super-fine piece of film-making, so unostentatiously so, you could be forgiven for not noticing; content to be working in that most stylised of genres, the Coens confine their wonted flamboyance to the dialogue, which is full of the kind of baroque archaicisms encountered before in their work (The Ladykillers, for example), but probably not found in the mouths of sub-literate denizens of the American frontier in the 1880s. The film has a definite feel for life on the edge of civilization, the forces of law and order inexorably catching up on the likes of Lucky Ned and his gang, while in the Indian Nations life has a very different, almost infernal hue (details like the hanged man and bearskin-cloaked quack doctor are Coen additions). At the same time, barely a single character lacks the spark of humanity, however malign in contingency, and one is left with a feeling of sorrow for the harshness of an existence that offers such limited choices and exacts so severe a punishment, even to those who seek and find justice. With this remake, it is clearer than ever whose grit is the truer.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 110m
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper
Synopsis:
A plucky farmgirl from Arkansas travels north to settle the affairs of her father, killed by a drunken hand, and hires a US marshal to pursue the culprit into Indian territory. They are joined by a Texas Ranger, on the same trail for differing reasons.
Review:
A super-fine piece of film-making, so unostentatiously so, you could be forgiven for not noticing; content to be working in that most stylised of genres, the Coens confine their wonted flamboyance to the dialogue, which is full of the kind of baroque archaicisms encountered before in their work (The Ladykillers, for example), but probably not found in the mouths of sub-literate denizens of the American frontier in the 1880s. The film has a definite feel for life on the edge of civilization, the forces of law and order inexorably catching up on the likes of Lucky Ned and his gang, while in the Indian Nations life has a very different, almost infernal hue (details like the hanged man and bearskin-cloaked quack doctor are Coen additions). At the same time, barely a single character lacks the spark of humanity, however malign in contingency, and one is left with a feeling of sorrow for the harshness of an existence that offers such limited choices and exacts so severe a punishment, even to those who seek and find justice. With this remake, it is clearer than ever whose grit is the truer.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 110m
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper
Synopsis:
A plucky farmgirl from Arkansas travels north to settle the affairs of her father, killed by a drunken hand, and hires a US marshal to pursue the culprit into Indian territory. They are joined by a Texas Ranger, on the same trail for differing reasons.
Review:
A super-fine piece of film-making, so unostentatiously so, you could be forgiven for not noticing; content to be working in that most stylised of genres, the Coens confine their wonted flamboyance to the dialogue, which is full of the kind of baroque archaicisms encountered before in their work (The Ladykillers, for example), but probably not found in the mouths of sub-literate denizens of the American frontier in the 1880s. The film has a definite feel for life on the edge of civilization, the forces of law and order inexorably catching up on the likes of Lucky Ned and his gang, while in the Indian Nations life has a very different, almost infernal hue (details like the hanged man and bearskin-cloaked quack doctor are Coen additions). At the same time, barely a single character lacks the spark of humanity, however malign in contingency, and one is left with a feeling of sorrow for the harshness of an existence that offers such limited choices and exacts so severe a punishment, even to those who seek and find justice. With this remake, it is clearer than ever whose grit is the truer.