A lot of the way i explain my opinion about culture is comes across as conflicted.
This may be the most conflicted post i write about a film. It might not be your favorite film but it should be in your top 10 is The Big Lebowski. The perfect marriage of Jeff Bridges and the Coens. The best ensamble cast of any film. One of the most quotable films ever; as i write this, I just heard a rugby commentator use the word 'parlance'. The film that allowed me out of the milky-booze closet; i was drinking/being fed Kahlua before i watched Lebowski and i can give you a note from my mother. So have i been excited about Bridges and the Coens getting the band back together. *inhales deeply* Yeah?
I guess i'm asking for trouble if i'm expecting a western about a trio on a journey with dangerous situations and people. I'm being facietious but asking the Coens to repeat themselves was always gonna be short-sighted.
True Grit is very good. I'm saying it's very good and i believe that. Everybody is great. Hailee Steinfeld is brilliant in-part carrying this film on her shoulder, as this frumpy forthright young girl on her path from justice and avenging her father. You forget she's a teenage girl, she's like a short fresh-faced Katherine Hepburn.
Matt Damon is brilliant as LeBoufe, a name i love. He's a wiley honest steadyhand compared to Cogburn but i love SPOILER the first scene that he and the girl share where he says, speaking with quite some candour that she looked so cute he was thinking about coming over to kiss her! Dude!! Not Cool! (SPOILER OVER.)
I gotta call out Barry Pepper. he's always come close to having a great role in some films but he's really good here; put to great ease by the Coens's evocing a young Dennis Hopper, who incidentally would have been in this sort of western. And of course Jeff Bridges is the man. Better, he's forever the Dude. Yeah Rooster Cogburn is a badass and violent and surley but he's also a collossal bum, a loser. So of course, i think he's great. Not the Dude though. And if you think that's unfair-i'll agree but it's how i feel.
In terms of the Coen Brothers, this is the most commercial film they set out to make to date. The plot is simple. The number of characters are few. The dialogue is quite direct and simple. Well for them it is. People are saying it's True Grit but it's still a Coen Brothers film. I say *hurm* to that. Compared to 'No Country...', I felt this came off as quite mercenary. Watching 'No Country...' i'd say it was unmistakably Coen despite originating from someone's prose. If i didn't know who made this, i can't say i'd feel the same but then i'd likely not judge it so harshly.
Let me be clear before i go straight back to being conflicting- i'm not saying this is The Ladykillers-bad. I'm not even saying it is bad. It just couldn't reach my sky-high expectations. This was my Phantom Menace. Actually that is too harsh but lets just say my objective brain thought it was great but my heart is pouting.
In closing as sisinctly as possible for me, please go see True Grit, if only so the Coens can get money to go back to the business of Coen Brothers movies.
I watched True Grit (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies continues with Dinner For Schmucks (2010)...
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