Vintage

For a Coen Brothers movie, the violence in True Grit was pretty much non-violent, but in a good Unforgiven style of manner.  True Grit  features an impressive cast: Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Jeff Bridges as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn along with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper. Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, a U.S. Marshall Gun-For-Hire, was iconic.  He was perhaps as iconic as a true icon that once holstered a six-shooter in this role.  Who was that?  Man, it was The Duke.  With a spot-on, Oscar-worthy performance,  Bridges not only served up justice to the coward Tom Chaney, a murderer of a little girl's dad, but to The Duke as well.

True Grit (2010) is a remake of an earlier well-known John Wayne effort of the same title  This version was as good as a western as I can remember in recent years.  Dare I say this western is probably the best of this decade, but the decade is only a year old or so...  Who knows what might come down the trail and shoot up the town between this year and another nine.

Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross was beyond charming and endearing.  She struck a highly believable chord as a 14-year old kid who was smart and merely wanted to seek revenge on a dastardly man who murdered her father to bring balance to way things should be.  However, you got the sense, that deep within her, there was buried emotion, but the emotion never surfaced except for subtle yet exceptionally poignant moments when you could see surprise and wonder sprout up in her eyes. She had "true grit" to the end, and in my opinion, this is the true grit in which the title truly refers.