THIS REVIEW IS TAKEN FROM www.fucking-movies.co.uk WHERE IT CAN BE SEEN IN ITS INTENDED FORM.
***WARNING***
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS AND CONTRADICTIONS THEREFORE IT MAYBE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME FUCKS. IT IS ALSO 18 INCHES LONG, STIFF AND MAKES WOMEN SCREAM, NOT UNLIKE A STILL BIRTH.
***YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***
When it comes to the Coen Brothers I am a very late bloomer. The first of their films that I saw was ‘The Big Labowski’ all of two years ago. Having been bowled over by this I then rushed into watching ‘Fargo’, ’Raising Arizona’, ‘Burn After Reading’ and ‘No Country For Old Men’. I’m aware that I have only grazed the surface when it comes to the brothers work but what I had seen thus far had left me hungry for more like some kind of film crazed Ethiopian child. In short I went into ‘True Grit’ with high expectations.
Typically westerns are not my thing. I’ve seen a fair few and have tried my best to like them but much like Chris O’Donnells career I find them long, drawn out, tiresome and totally uninteresting. I did not find this however with ‘True Grit’ which I found to have more substance, suspense and character than any other example of the genre I’ve seen before. At this stage in the game the ‘two headed director’ really does know how to direct the fuck out of a film, the actors contained within ‘True Grit’ are for the most part fantastic and require very little direction anyway. Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon have proven themselves to be great in pretty much any role they inhabit, the three of them easily make it into my list of favorite actors of the current movie generation, with Bridges in particular destined to become a behemoth in his craft for many years past his inevitable, heartbreaking demise. The presence of such actors though does take its toll on poor Hailee Steinfeld, who comes across a little out of her depth when pitted against her co-stars. This is not to say she doesn’t do a decent job, she does just fine but put her next to J.B. and expecting her to level with him is like arranging a fight between Andre The Giant and a small Ethiopian child with no positive attributes except for HIV and putting your life savings on the brown one.
As I said before the cast in the film is fantastic. Brolin is as solid as a fat mans turd and provides a great deal of apparent depth to a character that has about ten minutes of screen time. Damon is almost unrecognizable at times as an Angel who has been banished from heaven who must assist in the capture of Brolin in order to impress a professor with his amazing hidden talent for solving complex equations. And Bridges dishes out his typical ‘whip the audience up into a frenzy with amazing acting ass kickery while chewing up the scenery and excreting gold nuggets of cinematic wonder beans’ performance which we have all come to expect but simply can’t get enough of.
The script is also top notch, keeping Potis’s revenge tale set against the fall of the ‘old west’ and the up and coming of a more civilized order while mixing in the trademark dark humour the Coen Brothers have become known for.
In terms of story ‘True Grit’ is strong enough but I feel lacks a little something when it all comes to a close. The audience spends the whole movie being invested in the characters and awaiting the tales conclusion only to find it happen a little too suddenly and then for it to continue for a few extra minutes in order to tie up loose ends which could honestly be left untied. This is something so unusual for the Coen’s that I am willing to bet the book does the same thing seeing as the brothers set out to make a faithful re-telling of the book with this film. As a result of the same slightly ‘from the hip’ style of writing there are a couple of times in the main bulk of the film where your not quite sure where its all going, these moments are however brief and do little to knock what is in actuality a pretty sturdy, well built movie.
Technically the film is sound. The cinematography is great boasting many beautiful shots that will please the more pretentious amongst the audience, the sound design is also top notch bringing back the uneasy sparseness that ‘No Country’ played off to perfection. There is a hiccup in the ‘set’ design/locations where for some reason you will find some shots don’t quite marry up to the previous. I know this seems like a bit of a nit-picker of a comment but its noticeable and therefor distracting. I know my promise is to not prattle on about bull shit but when I spend a chunk of a film trying to work out geography I feel I need to point it out, its by far the films biggest flaw and there is no excuse for it being there.
On the whole I was impressed with ‘True Grit’, if you enjoy good writing, acting and directing then this will go down a treat. It has a few tiny flaws sure but what doesn’t? The very world we live in has so many great wonders only spoilt a little by the fact that there are starving Ethiopians somewhere harshing up everybody’s mellow. I Mean they just keep popping up, I for one would just like to forget its happening and live my life guilt free, what’s so wrong with that! Its all their fault really.
True Grit gets...
4 out of 5
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