There are not many directors working at the pace that the Coen brothers are currently hurtling at. Four films in the last three years, and they show no signs of stopping. They’ve ranged from the exquisite (‘No Country For Old Men’) to the lacklustre (‘Burn After Reading’), and throw in a good chunk of the weirds along the way too (‘A Serious Man’), so, in true Coen brothers fashion, they defy expectation and conviction in one fell swoop in the shape of a wild west remake.
‘True Grit’ is better described as a take on the original novel than a straight up movie remake however. The film flows almost too easily, and being directors who have mastered and taken over their art, this film feels like they could have done it in their sleep. For all the possible spins they could have put on this film it is ultimately straight up and traditional, familiar in structure and narrative, however a certain simplicity often makes it endearing. There is no new ground being broken here, just trodden ground being covered well.
The acting is robust all round - Jeff Bridges falls into the roll of the bearded, grumbling, one-eyed boozer with jigsaw precision. Sardonic humour runs through the film like the snakes that fill the mountains that they roam. Relentless banter is batted back and forth between the U.S. Marshall (Bridges), young justice bound girl (Hailee Steinfeld), and ever defensive and macho Texas Ranger (Matt Damon). It results in an almost light-hearted journey between the characters themselves but physically they must bear a bitter and unwelcoming wilderness that greets them with death and danger at every turn.
It’s a fairly regimented formula now, but it works here, and again it’s simplicity acts as its kindest trait. It’s almost as though the Coen brothers are making a paint by numbers film, trying as best they can to stay inside the lines, and for a duo who scribble so relentlessly outside of the lines and all over the walls, its restraint is bizarrely a welcome addition. It’s a genre that has ultimately lost its way with modern cinema-goers and filmmakers alike - remaining as dusty and dated as that pair of stirrups hanging up on the saloon wall - but the Coen brothers have seamlessly injected life into it, showing there is still plenty more water to be had from the well.