I should probably warn you that nothing that comes after this is going to be very good.
Oh wait, I forgot about Monkey Thunderdome. Yeah, Monkey Thunderdome's pretty great. Especially last week's fight. It was kind of a cheat to bring in the fire-breathing bats when the rules clearly outlaw attack-birds (a violation of the spirit, if not the letter), but what a display that was. Well hey, I thought I had nothing to talk about, and here we are reminiscing about the single greatest moment in animal-gladiating history.
We all must feel pretty good right now. Then again, everyone's perceptions are altered by our expectations, including those of us who get paid to pretend otherwise. When I heard there was a new Coen Brothers movie, and that it was a Western starring Jeff Bridges as some bounty hunter guy with one eye, it was hard not to expect greatness (it helped to remind myself there was a kid involved and it's PG-13). Instead, True Grit gave me pretty-goodness.
14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld's father has been killed by Josh Brolin, and no one seems to care. On the trip to town to handle her dad's funeral, she takes the opportunity to hire a U.S. Marshal to track Brolin down.
It takes some fast talking and 50 bucks to hire Jeff Bridges, a mean and murderous drunk. But Texas Ranger Matt Damon wants Brolin for himself--and with the criminal escaped to Indian territory, the trail won't be easy to pick up.
Coen Brothers flicks are like that fungus on your back: they'll grow on you. Normally, you watch one of their movies once and you're like "Sweet, that guy just shot that other guy right in the face, uh oh what's up with that wood chipper!" -- meanwhile, strange, dark things are happening on the sidelines, stuff you might not pick up for the next viewing or five. Every opening week review is just an initial impression, but with the Coens, it can feel like more of a placeholder.
How's that for ass-covering? Pretty coverful, I'd say. But that's what you have to do when you're preparing to call something starring Bridges as a one-eyed, whiskey-swilling manhunter just "quite solid."
It goes without saying Bridges is great. Really, a cartoon chipmunk with a perm would look studly in this role, but Bridges is just about perfect both for his past-his-prime physicality and his handling of the dry, hilarious dialogue. Except for the part where they'd never have become millionaire moviemakers, Joel and Ethan Coen clearly regret not being born in the 19th century, and they exorcise many of those demons through the banter in True Grit.
Banter that would have been infinitely less great if Steinfeld weren't so good. As a tough-talking but somewhat naive young girl, she somehow holds her own beside Bridges and Damon.
Her presence doesn't stop True Grit from getting brutish, either. When they find a corpse hanging from a high tree, Bridges suggests it'll be worth money for someone. There's not much in the way of violence, but when it arrives, it's swift, bloody, and as punishing as that one superhero who pays people back for their misdeeds. I think his name is "Mr. Hurts the Bad Guys."
Yet the relationships between Bridges, Steinfeld and Damon never cohere as sharply as you might want, and the climax feels somewhat rushed, too. Could be that's out of faithfulness to the book True Gritis based on, or it could be the Coens aren't about building every movie up to decide the fate of the world, including that underground world beneath the Earth's crust where us coolest people go to party every weekend. Still, it left me wanting more.
That's enough to reduce it from "instant classic" to "more than worth watching": a well-acted, well-written movie with a sense of doom around the next bend. Set expectations accordingly.
Grade: B+
