I am – Hercules!!
The first thing to know is 2010’s “True Grit” is hilarious. I think I maybe laughed aloud twice (at Zach Galinfianakis) during “The Hangover.” I think I maybe laughed aloud more than 100 times during “Grit.”
Hailee Steinfeld, the girl procured to play the fiilm’s teen protagonist, is supercute. Her character, Maddie Ross, is a riot, and the Coens figured out how to squeeze every drop of comedy out of her. Maddie’s a funnier, American version of the Zhang Ziyi character in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” We learn pretty quickly that this fiercely blunt, determined and shockingly capable young woman is going to have a tough time finding a fellow worthy of her. Maddie alone is worth the price of admission, even if that price is $16 at the Hollywood Arclight.
Josh Brolin does not get a lot of screen time but proves solid as the dim dirtbag everybody's after.
Matt Damon is mammothly amusing as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, a lawman of talent, but a lawman who thinks perhaps too much of himself and the storied body that employs him.
The boastfulness makes LaBoeuf a great foil for both Maddie and Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn, an aged, hard-drinking U.S. marshal with (when sober) a terrific understanding of limitations – including his own. (Though one of the coolest things about this movie is watching Maddie repeatedly defy Cogburn’s expectations.)
Audiences are destined to fall head over heels in love with Bridges’ version of Cogburn, which may be the furthest from the real Bridges we’ve seen since “Starman.” Harry Knowles bookended Butt-Numb-A-Thon 12 with “True Grit” and “Tron Legacy,” and Bridges’ people would be well advised to send “Tron” and “Grit” to Academy voters in a bundle, just to remind them of this actor’s range.
(If you see “Tron Legacy,” incidentally, be certain to see the 3D version; it is quite something.)
I grew to love John Wayne’s Rooster long ago from a zillion airings on ABC’s Sunday Night Movie, but Bridges wipes the floor with him from the marshal’s first (purely wonderful) scene offering testimony.
I am flabbergasted that more critics and critics organizations are not putting this movie on their lists. I guess I need to see “Black Swan” and “Winter’s Bone” and “The King’s Speech” if they’re supposed to be better (though something tells me they’re not).
I love Aaron Sorkin’s “Social Network,” and chortled plenty as the tale of Mark Zuckerberg unspooled. But I love “True Grit” so much more. It boasts heart, adventure, peril, drama, enough truly great characters to accomodate three movies, and a wagon-load of million-dollar jokes.
It opens midnight tonight.
See it. Thank me later.
