True Grit

 REVIEW: True Grit IMDB

MOVIE INFO

• Producer - 
  
• Director - Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
  
• Primary Actors:

• • Barry Pepper - Lucky Ned Pepper 
  • Jeff Bridges - Rooster Cogburn 
  • Matt Damon: LaBoeuf
  • Hailee Steinfeld: Mattie Ross

INTRO STUFF

• CHUCK
  • Friends visiting from out of town (entertaining friends), done with travel for the holidays
• MIKE
  • Family Crisis, Job Crisis...remarkably calm, all considered
    

SYNOPSIS

WALKING IN F&T (FEARS & THOUGHTS)

• CHUCK
  • I don't want to see a boring Western where the plot takes 2 hours to unfold as they treck boringly across some random field.
• MIKE
  • Flynn took home a much-deserved Oscar last year, Cohen Brothers are great when they try to be entertaining (More Fargo, less Barton Fink) - this is gonna rock.
    

FIRST ACT

• There's a shot and a man rides away on a horse
• The morgue
  • We meet the little girl (Mattie Ross) giving orders to their family help
• Mattie meets old business man
  • They haggle for the horses and $ - also classic. This movie plays with a lot of preconceptions, you assume the girl to be ignorant of how the "real world" works, but she seemed more worldly than the older folks in the movie...
• 
  

...LATER SCENES

• Mattie looks for a deputy to help her hunt down the man who killed her dad
  • first visit with Rooster - on the crapper
• Mattie's sleeping arrangements - sleeping in the bed with the hold lady
• Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) gives his testimony in court - LOVED THAT!
  
• Mattie meets LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) - not such a positive engagement
• Mattie hires Cogburn, Cogburn skips town without Mattie
• Mattie catches up with Cogburn and LaBoeuf (crosses the river) riding 'Blackie'
• Their first night trying to sleep around the fire
• Shooting contest
  • Cogburn is drunk 
• LaBoeuf splits
• A stop at a friends house
  • pushes over the Indians sitting on the front of the house?  It was humorous, but I didn't know why he was really doing that.
• Mattie and Cogburn find a dead body
  • The dude with the bear skin head, didn't know if this was supposed to be comic relief or what was going on here.
• Mattie and Cogburn find a house
  • Smoke out the house
  • The crazy guy cut off his buddies fingers then stabbed him - Most violent I have seen from a PG-13 movie - I usually mock the level of violence in such thing, but I am amazed this did not get an "R"
    
• LaBoeuf finds the house
  • Hog tied, got shot, one guy gets away (Lucky Ned Pepper - played by Barry Pepper)
• Trail comes to an end
• Mattie finds Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) at the river and shoots at him
  • They kidnap her
  • Cogburn bugs out per Lucky Ned's instructions
  • A guy comes out of the woods screaming "bock bock bock, cluck, cluck, cluck" making chicken noises - this must have been a throw back to the original because he came from no where....very strange.
• Lucky Ned leaves Mattie with Tom Chaney 
• The confrontation between Lucky Ned and his gang and Cogburn
  • Cogburn was so driven, he was not going to lose that fight
• LaBoeuf saves Mattie
• Mattie falls into the hole - gets bit by a snake
• Cogburn takes Mattie to his friend's house and saves her
  • He shoots the horse
  • Runs
• Mattie grown up as the little business lady with one arm
• Meets Cogburn's business partners, but treats them poorly - what happened to make her treat them poorly?  Maybe she was just mad he died? It was only one of them, Frank James, I think it was a former outlaw, the one who refused to stand the presence of a lady...and the whole outlaw thing...

RANDOM THOUGHTS

• Have to see the original now - still haven't seen it
• Me too, and maybe read the novel on which both movies were based...

...THE ACTORS

• Barry Pepper - Lucky Ned Pepper - did a great job, teeth and all (he will always be the sniper in Saving Private Ryan to me...) (...role in Battlefield Earth)
  
• Jeff Bridges - Rooster Cogburn 
  • Great acting, with a touch of Sling Blade vocals...
• Matt Damon: LaBoeuf
  • Surprised me, I didn't expect him to play this role so well.  He played a bit of a Texas ranger snob and pulled it off
• Hailee Steinfeld: Mattie Ross
  • New face with great potential

QUESTIONS:

• You notice things like continuity and plot holes when you are not in there with the characters...this one had me the whole way though.  Rare enough.

THE MACGUFFIN:

• The gold coin?
• I would say more like Vengeance....
  

Sponsorships

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Quote of the movie

• "Ground's too hard. Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer"
• "I thought you gonna say the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your Eye!"
• And "futile", Marshal Cogburn, "pursuit would be futile"? It's not spelled "f-u-d-e-l." 
  

CLOSING THOUGHTS

CHUCK Rating: 4.5

• Positives
  • Love Cogburn's character, a no non-sense guy who gets the job done
  • Acting was great, the story was great, and all around just a fun movie
• Negatives
  • Sad it was over

MIKE Rating: 5.0

• Positives
  • This is what you go to the movies for.  I do not like westerns, there were no huge explosions, no nudity, and I still think this was one of the best movies ever made - That is how you do it!
    
• Negatives
  • The movie was so good, it is hard to pick out a best moment, it was all so good, nothing really stands out.