True Grit (2010) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV A tough U.S. Marshal helps a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer. Directors: a list of 33 titles created 03 Feb 2011 a list of 43 images created 19 Feb 2011 a list of 47 titles created 28 Sep 2013 a list of 29 titles created 21 Apr 2015 a list of 26 titles created 11 Jul 2015 Search for " True Grit " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 10 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 148 nominations.

See more awards » Videos In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. Director: James Mangold When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis Tom Regan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh Edit Storyline Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn.

Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested. Written by Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 December 2010 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Temple de acero See more » Filming Locations: $24,850,000 (USA) (24 December 2010) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Rooster refers to LaBoeuf as a "brush popper" and later as a "waddie." Those are American West terms for a cowboy.

See more » Goofs When Mattie cuts the hanged man down from the tree and Rooster kicks him over so that he is lying flat on his back, his legs are crossed and his coat is half open. As Rooster stands over the dead man, Rooster's shadow falls behind him, away from the dead man. After the next scene, where the Indian on horseback approaches, no one has touched the dead man, and Rooster is standing in the same place. But now the dead man's legs aren't crossed anymore, his coat is fully open, and Rooster's shadow falls in front of him, across the dead man's legs. See more » Quotes [first lines] 40-Year-Old Mattie : People do not give it credence that a young girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood. But it did happen. I was just 14 years of age when a coward by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down and robbed him of his life and his horse and two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

Chaney was a hired man and Papa had taken him up to Fort Smith to help lead back a string of Mustang ponies he'd bought. In town, Chaney had ... See more » Crazy Credits Buster Coen, Ethan Coen's son, is listed in the end credits as "Mr. Damon's abs double". In reality, he was an on-set assistant to the script supervisor. See more » Connections Film review: 'True Grit' a worthy Western remake | Deseret News Film review: 'True Grit' a worthy Western remake By Roger Moore Comments TRUE GRIT — ★★★ — Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin; PG-13 (violence, disturbing images); in general release Jeff Bridges dons John Wayne's sizable boots in "True Grit," a grittier Coen Brothers version of the tale that won the Duke his Oscar 40 years ago. And if the fit isn't as snug and the performance not as warm and exultant as Wayne's, the movie still manages to be a most worthy Western remake.

In that stilted, period-perfect speech that characterized the Charles Portis novel and the first film, the adult Mattie Ross of Yell County narrates a tale from her past, back when her daddy was murdered in rural Arkansas. She was 14 back then, and screen newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is a pistol in this part. The moment we meet young Mattie, dressed in black, she's haggling with the undertaker. And asking her age, mid-argument, will just annoy her. "That is a silly question." She nags a poor horse trader (Dakin Matthews), threatening him with legal action from her family attorney, the unseen J. Noble Daggett. She ruffles feathers, even as she earns the occasional "I admire your sand." Here's a girl with grit. Mattie is a stubborn kid — "I intend to see Papa's killer hanged." Nothing will dissuade her.

And as she asks who to hire for the dirty job of chasing the murderer, one man's description meets her approval, "a pitiless man, fear doesn't enter into his thinking." That would be Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a man, she hopes, "with true grit." Bridges gives Rooster a lurching, slack-jawed, top-heavy quality. This is a one-eyed drunk who won't brook any questioning of his past or his trigger-happy methods. This Rooster barely tolerates Mattie, even after she's met his price for setting off into the Indian Territories in search of the killer, Tom Chaney. Matt Damon is an interesting, chatty choice to play Laboeuf, an articulate pipe-smoker who is entirely too proud of his Texas Ranger status. He wangles his way onto their quest, as does Mattie, who stuffs newspaper into her daddy's hat so that it'll fit and will not be brushed off by these two bluff lawmen. "I will see the thing done." Their odyssey is every bit as epic as you remember it.

Cogburn and Laboeuf re-fight the Civil War over their respective parts in it, and Rooster never misses a chance to land a cheap shot, such as ridiculing the Texan's horse — "How long you boys been mounted on sheep? The sense of a time and place is as vivid here as it was in the original film. The violent encounters are more violent than those in John Wayne's day (though not by much) and the story still has an ambling pace. And if the score is less heroic and the scenery less Alpine, at least the cast and script are every bit as good as in the much-loved original film. Josh Brolin brings a brutish humor to the thuggish Chaney, and durable character actor Barry Pepper plays the outlaw leader Chaney has hooked up with, Lucky Ned Pepper. (Robert Duvall played Lucky Ned in 1969.) Damon, Brolin, Bridges Saddle Up for 'True Grit' Remake | Moviefone Damon, Brolin, Bridges Saddle Up for 'True Grit' Remake by Harley W.

Lond Matt Damon and Josh Brolin may be saddling up to join Jeff Bridges in Ethan and Joel Coen's upcoming remake of 'True Grit,' the iconic 1969 Western that introduced Rooster Cogburn to the world. Damon, Brolin in 'True Grit' talks | Hollywood Reporter Damon, Brolin in 'True Grit' talks 2:06 PM PDT 10/26/2009 by , Steven Zeitchik COMMENTS Coen brothers also reach out to Jeff Bridges Matt Damon is in discussions to star in Ethan and Joel Coen's remake of "True Grit." Josh Brolin, who starred in the brothers' "No Country for Old Men," is also in talks for a major role. Paramount Pictures and the Oscar-winning writer-director team are moving fast on their re-adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, first reaching out to Jeff Bridges, and now Damon and Brolin, to potentially star. Damon would take on the Glen Campbell role of a Texas Ranger tracking an outlaw along with a gruff U.S. marshal originally played by John Wayne, who won an Oscar for his role in the 1969 Western.

All three actors are in discussions with the studio, which hopes to move into production in the spring. The story concerns a 14-year-old girl traveling into dangerous territory with the two lawmen in search of the man who murdered her father, who Brolin would play. Bridges and Brolin have worked with the Coens before, but Damon is new to their coterie of actors. Bridges famously portrayed Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski in the Brothers' comic noir, "The Big Lebowski," in 1998. Presumably, the new role will involve fewer acid flashbacks and bowling montages. And Brolin played the doomed Llewelyn Moss in "No Country," based on the Cormac McCarthy novel. Scott Rudin, who produced the Best Picture winner "No Country," is producing "Grit" as well, along with Steven Spielberg. Focus Features recently released the Coens' latest film, "A Serious Man," after premiering it at the Toronto film festival last month. The WME-repped Damon recently starred in "The Informant!" and will next appear in Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" in December.

The WME-repped Brolin recently starred in "W." and "Milk." He is currently shooting Oliver Stone's "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps" and will next star in Warner Bros.' "Jonah Hex" in June. Jeff Bridges Archives - Great Western Movies Great Western Movies An In-Depth Guide to Westerns Menu Wild Bill (1995) Nicholas Chennault ~ August 2, 2014 Wild Bill —Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, Diane Lane, David Arquette, James Gammon, Christina Applegate, Keith Carradine, Bruce Dern, Marjoe Gortner, James Remar, Steve Reevis (1995; Dir: Walter Hill) This film sports an excellent cast with Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok, Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane, and, best of all, one of the greatest living masters of the western movie, Walter Hill directing. Should be great, right? It doesn’t seem to be, though. Jeff Bridges does look terrific as Wild Bill; there is very good production design on this film.

At the start of the movie, there are brief vignettes from his career as a lawman: battling cavalrymen from the Seventh Cavalry in a bar in Tommy Drum’s saloon in Hays City, Kansas, killing several of them; killing Phil Coe and, accidentally, his own deputy Mike Williams, in Abilene; and jousting with and killing Sioux chief Whistler (Blackfoot actor Steve Reevis) on the plains, at Whistler’s insistence. All those incidents get him to the rough mining town of Deadwood, Dakota Territory, in August 1876. He hasn’t been a lawman for five years, and he’s 39 years old. He makes his living as a gambler (badly, apparently). His eyesight is going, thanks to glaucoma. He may be suffering from a venereal disease. And he drinks a lot and takes refuge in smoking opium. Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok; Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane. One looks pretty authentic, and one less so.

As soon as he gets to Deadwood, he encounters old friend Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin), who makes it plain she’d like to renew an old relationship and even take it farther. He doesn’t reciprocate, although he still values the friendship. Jack McCall (David Arquette) is the none-too-smart son of Susannah Moore (Diane Lane), whom Hickok had once promised to marry. Instead, he went off to scout for the army and, when he came back six months later, she had a relationship going with Dave Tutt. Hickok killed Tutt in a gunfight in Springfield, Missouri, in 1865, and Susannah died in an asylum. McCall announces he intends to kill Hickok, but Hickok, who has already demonstrated that he doesn’t have much fear when it comes to guns, doesn’t seem unduly concerned. Bill hits the opium den, and smoking the stuff takes him back to other events in his life. Sometimes those are in color, as with his gunfight in Cheyenne with a crippled Will Plummer (Bruce Dern), with Bill tied to a chair.

Usually, the flashbacks are in black and white, often with a skewed angle, as when Bill encounters a band of Cheyenne dog soldiers. He remembers the McCandles fight that made his reputation as a gunfighter and almost killed him. He remembers his brief and unsuccessful theatrical career with Buffalo Bill (Keith Carradine in a cameo). He remembers Susannah Moore and Dave Tutt, as well. McCall finds him in the opium den relatively helpless under the effects of the narcotic, but he’s not as helpless as he seems. Cheyenne dog soldiers in an opium dream. Finally McCall and several desperadoes, including Donnie Lonnigan (James Remar) and Jubal Pickett (Stoney Jackson), get the drop on Hickok as he and Calamity Jane are dallying in No. 10 saloon. Hickok friends Charley Prince (John Hurt, apparently an English version of actual Hickok friend Charley Utter) and California Joe (James Gammon) join them, as well as a prostitute on whom McCall has a fixation (Christina Applegate). We know how this is going to end, and it takes a while getting there with all these extraneous characters.

Finally, Bill gets some of the desperadoes and chases off the rest. But he’s holding black aces and eights, and the weaselly McCall shoots him in the back of the head with a derringer, to be hung himself later. Nowhere does Bill’s recent wife, Agnes Lake, show up, nor is she referred to. Jeff Bridges is an excellent actor, and he looks good in the part. He communicates Hickok’s fearlessness and a powerful personality. But it’s not an attractive period in Hickok’s life, and the performance seems a bit over the top. The Hickok gunfight scenes are very effective and believable. Ellen Barkin is much more attractive than the real Calamity Jane, as is usual in a movie about Hickok. Although there are a number of good character actors (Bruce Dern, John Hurt, James Gammon, Diane Lane), many of them seem extraneous to what’s going on, especially during that overly-extended final sequence in the bar. Hurt’s character talks too much, meaning the writing isn’t as good as it could be.

Arquette’s McCall is probably intended to be as weaselly as he is here, but he’s on screen too much. The real James Butler Hickok and his murderer, Jack McCall, the first person executed by federal authorities in Dakota Territory. Director Walter Hill has made what may be the best movie to date about Jesse James ( The Long Riders ), as well as an underrated film about Geronimo (Geronimo: An American Legend) and the really excellent made-for-television Broken Trail . He has a genuine feel for westerns, but this is probably his weakest. The movie claims to be based on a good novel by Pete Dexter, Deadwood, and the play Fathers and Sons by Thomas Babe, but it certainly doesn’t keep very closely to the novel. Hill himself wrote the screenplay, so he has no one else to blame for that. It was not a success at the box office, costing more than $30,000,000 and making back only $2,168,000 domestically. Cinematography, mostly in color but also occasionally in sepia tones and black and white, is by Lloyd Ahern ( Broken Trail ).

Music is by Van Dyke Parks, who also did the music for the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit (2010). Perhaps that’s why the song over the opening and closing credits is the same as that used as the theme music for True Grit : the hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Jeff Bridges starred in that one, too, as Rooster Cogburn. Wild Bill is only 98 minutes, but it feels longer, which is not a good sign. However, if you’re particularly interested in cinematic versions of Wild Bill Hickok, Jeff Bridges’ work in westerns or the career of Walter Hill, you’ll want to watch this, too, if only for the sake of completeness. This doesn’t keep particularly close to the facts of Bill’s life, but neither do most movies featuring Wild Bill Hickok. In particular, McCall had no relationship with Hickok. He was just someone who had lost money to Hickok the night before and killed him opportunistically by shooting him in the back of the head with a .45 (acting alone). The movie is rated R for violence and seaminess in language and sexual matters. Walter Hill directing Jeff Bridges.

Hill was also involved in the making of the cable television series Deadwood, which had some of the same gritty feel, directing the first episode (2004). That one featured Keith Carradine as a world-weary Wild Bill for several episodes. For an earlier and more adulatory version of Wild Bill’s myth, see Gary Cooper as Bill in The Plainsman (1936). The definitive Wild Bill movie probably has yet to be made. If you want the real historical background on James Butler Hickok, look for the biography by Joseph Rosa, They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok (1974). Robert Mitchum as Clint Tollinger in Man With the Gun Clint Tollinger comes into the town of Sheridan looking for a new horse shoe and his ex-wife. Because of his reputation as a town tamer, Tollinger is recruited to clean up Sheridan, especially in resisting the forces of local cattle baron Dave Holman. He’s up to the task, but the townfolk don’t always like his approach or the results. In his middle period as an actor, Mitchum has a noir feel to him in this role.

His earlier westerns (such as Blood on the Moon and Pursued ) generally work better than his later ones ( The Wonderful Country ), although he’s not bad as the alcoholic sheriff J.P. Harrah in El Dorado . For a superb non-western performance, catch him in one of the quintessential noir movies, Out of the Past. He was also very good at playing bad guys, as he did in the original Cape Fear, The Night of the Hunter and Five Card Stud . Even when he was a good guy, he seemed on the verge of becoming a bad guy, and that possibility added an edge to his performances. Kirk Douglas as Matt Morgan in Last Train to Gun Hill Kirk Douglas was in a surprising number of westerns, and he’s fairly good in many of them, although he tends to seem both urban and egocentric. He was one of the biggest stars of his time, and Last Train from Gun Hill , directed by John Sturges, is one of his best westerns. Matt Morgan is a sheriff married to an Indian wife. She is raped and murdered by two young men, one of them the son of Morgan’s old friend Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn).

The core of the movie follows Morgan on his expedition to Gun Hill to retrieve the evildoers, and his resulting battles with Belden, with a variety of gunmen and with his own drive for vengeance. Quinn is excellent here, too, and Carolyn Jones is good. If you like Douglas’ style in this one, try him in The Big Sky , as Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the OK Corral and with John Wayne in The War Wagon . Anthony Quinn as Bob Kallen in The Ride Back Anthony Quinn was in a surprising number of westerns from his early days in the movies, usually in small roles where he is an Indian, a villain or both (see The Plainsman , Union Pacific and The Ox-Bow Incident , for example). During the 1950s he was more often a supporting character, and was always interesting. Look for him, for example, as magnetic and multi-dimensional bad guys in Last Train from Gun Hill and Warlock (both from 1959). He was also one of the leads in two smaller westerns: The Ride Back and Man from Del Rio . The Ride Back is really a two-man film, with Quinn and William Conrad, and they’re both excellent.

Quinn’s Bob Kallen is, like Quinn himself, half-Mexican; a dangerous gunman, he’s wanted back in Texas for a shooting that may have been justified. He’s better with people and with guns than Conrad’s Chris Hamish and is constantly calculating how to play that next, spending most of the short film on an edge but going along for the moment with Conrad’s deputy sheriff. He could play ethnic convincingly, and his career of the 1960s blossomed in those roles. Look for him in The Guns of Navarone, Zorba the Greek (perhaps his signature role of the 1960s), Lawrence of Arabia and in a mural on the side of a building in downtown Los Angeles. He’s one of those actors like Lee Marvin, who was almost always worth watching no matter what he was in. Spencer Tracy as Major Robert Rogers in Northwest Passage and as John J. Macreedy in Bad Day at Black Rock Spencer Tracy was one of the best actors of his time, beginning about 1935, and his performances wear pretty well. He didn’t make many westerns, but in these unconventional two he was excellent.

As Major Robert Rogers, he leads Rogers’ Rangers during the French and Indian War, in their arduous and perilous raid on the Abenaki village of St. Francis in eastern Canada. He projects decisive leadership when things are going well, harder leadership when men have to be left behind, and harder yet on the return trip when provisions are low and his men are being hunted on all sides. He finally almost cracks when his beleaguered men reach Fort Wentworth, only to find it abandoned and without the supplies he had been promising his emaciated men. His is the performance that holds attention during the movie, notwithstanding the supposed leads of Robert Young and Walter Brennan. This movie wasn’t often seen, since it only became available on DVD in December 2011. Tracy’s career was on its downhill side and he was struggling with alcoholism when he was cast as the lead in this John Sturges modern western with a noir feel. One-armed John J. Macreedy is getting backed into corners as soon as he steps off the train in Black Rock, and he’s quietly up to the challenges he faces.

Almost always he faces them with an even temper, but he also has mostly believable physical confrontations with Ernest Borgnine and Robert Ryan. By the end he has sorted out the local mystery and all the bad guys before he gets back on the train. This may be one of the best films set in the modern west, and Tracy was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance in it. Dean Martin as Dude (Borachon) in Rio Bravo In movies he usually played some form of caricature of himself, but Dean Martin could actually act when given good material and direction as he was in his first movie, Rio Bravo . As Dude, the now-alcoholic former deputy of Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne), Martin is convincing in his booziness and in his rehabilitation. His barroom scene when he and Chance follow a killer into a bar where everybody thinks of him as a drunk is a classic. You can see both desperation and calculation as he tries to figure out what to do. He’s also pretty good in The Sons of Katie Elder (again with Wayne) and bearable in Bandolero! and Five Card Stud .

Brad Pitt as Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford Jesse James has often been portrayed on film , including by his son Jesse Edward James at age 46 in the silent film Jesse James Under the Black Flag (1921) and by Tyrone Power (1939). His historical charisma is elusive, and for some reason it’s harder to portray him than it is his brother Frank, who has been done well by Henry Fonda (twice) and Stacy Keach , among others. Brad Pitt may be the best Jesse on film, in this beautifully-shot retelling of the Ron Hansen novel with the cumbersome title. He’s charismatic, dangerous and a bit tired of it all at the end of his life, coolly playing with and pushing those around him. This isn’t the best movie about Jesse and the James-Younger gang; that would be The Long Riders . But Brad does make a better Jesse than the remote James Keach does in Walter Hill’s film. This one is worth watching for the gorgeous cinematography and for Pitt’s performance in a notoriously difficult role. Robert Taylor as Buck Wyatt in Westward the Women As an actor, Taylor was beautiful but not terribly expressive.

He could be a bit wooden sometimes, but this stoic quality is not always a detriment in westerns if the actor is well-directed in well-written material. This underrated wagon train movie is really an ensemble effort, but Taylor’s wagonmaster Buck Wyatt is the dominant character. He’s on screen most of the time, and he’s very good. Taylor’s notable career in westerns begins with his performance as Billy the Kid (1941), mostly wearing his signature black, when he was more than ten years older than the Kid ever became. Beginning in the late 1940s, he started to do more westerns: Ambush and Devil’s Doorway (an early Anthony Mann western) are watchable. In the 1950s his best westerns were with directors John Sturges and Robert Parrish: The Law and Jake Wade and Saddle the Wind . Burl Ives in Day of the Outlaw This wintry low-budget western noir is superbly cast in its two leading roles, and it wouldn’t work well otherwise. Robert Ryan is head rancher Blaise Starrett, whose town is invaded by a band of military renegades led by Burl Ives as the dying Jack Bruhn.

It’s only his will and his leadership abilities that are keeping his lowlifes in line at all, and it’s a constant exercise in balancing what can be done with what basic decency requires even from a renegade. Bruhn, whose past participation in some notable Civil War-era military mess in Utah is only alluded to and never much described, still has some kernel of that decency but can’t let it come to the fore lest his men rebel and tear him to shreds. It’s always interesting to see what he’ll allow and what he won’t, what he can control and what he can’t, and what will happen if/when he dies. The rotund Ives was best known in the 1950s as a singer of folk-type music, but he could also be very effective in Big Daddy-type roles (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). For his other western in such a role, see him in the large-scale The Big Country , for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He also played a singing hotel desk clerk in Station West , with Dick Powell.

Ben Foster as Charlie Prince in 3:10 to Yuma Ben Foster was unknown to many moviegoers when he showed up as outlaw chieftain Ben Wade’s principal lieutenant Charlie Prince in this remake. But he captured the screen as a bad guy trying to rescue his boss. Partly it’s good production design with his costume, partly it’s written as a juicier role than in the original, but mostly it’s Foster’s compelling performance in one of the best westerns in recent decades. Even though he’s a supporting character and not one of the principals, it’s no accident that it’s Foster’s Charlie Prince on some of the most prominent posters for this movie. He tends to linger in the memory, and his performance is one of the reasons many rate the remake higher than the original. Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit He’s a different kind of one-eyed marshal Rooster Cogburn than John Wayne was, symbolized by his wearing the patch on his right eye instead of the left, as Wayne did. He is surrounded by a better ensemble of actors (Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld) than Wayne was and doesn’t have to carry the entire movie the same way.

However, he is still central to the story, and his Rooster Cogburn is fun to watch and quite believable, even if it can be hard to understand what he’s saying at times. In a role created by the most iconic of western stars, Bridges stands up to Wayne’s performance by disappearing more into the part and coming up with a harder-edged Cogburn. He didn’t win a Best Actor Oscar for this, but he was nominated. You should watch both versions. Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained The Vienna-born Waltz, in his second film with Quentin Tarantino, was reportedly reluctant to take on the role of the loquacious German-born, bounty-hunting dentist in Django Unchained . He only did so upon being assured that his character would have no negatives—other than his profession of killing people, presumably. His smooth brand of courtliness toward most people around him, including the newly-freed slave Django, provides a counterpoint to the hardness he displays in his profession, causing the viewer to constantly balance the two and wonder which will dominate in any situation. He holds the screen well and less abrasively than other characters.

Coming into his own in Hollywood in middle age, he hasn’t been in other westerns. But he played an excellent Nazi villain in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and he won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for both that role and this one. True Grit (the Remake) Nicholas Chennault ~ July 23, 2013 True Grit —Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Dakin Mathews (2010; Dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) “You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don’t have time to think about how many’s with him. He thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that’s about to set down on him.” This line of Rooster Cogburn philosophy wasn’t explicit in the original 1969 True Grit . Many wondered if a remake was necessary, especially with westerns being so out-of-cinematic-fashion and all. But the result has been the Coen brothers’ most profitable movie to date, even taking into account their Oscar winner No Country for Old Men.

The Coens’ attempt to return more closely to the original Charles Portis novel is successful on its own terms, even though much of the dialogue sounds familiar. The outlines of the story are very familiar by now: 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) from near Dardanelles in Yell County, Arkansas, sets out for Fort Smith in search of her father’s killer, only to find he has headed off into the wild and lawless Indian Territory to the west. She hires one-eyed Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), said to be the most ruthless of Judge Parker’s federal marshals, to pursue the killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). They are joined by a dandified Texas ranger, La Boeuf (pronounced “La Beef” and played by Matt Damon), who wants Chaney for a Texas murder. In the end, all three pursuers have demonstrated their own versions of True Grit in battling outlaws, snakes and the elements in their pursuit of Chaney and his new associates. There are various elements that are unchanged from Henry Hathaway’s original film version of the story. If anything, the remake keeps even closer to Portis’ period language and does so quite successfully.

The interplay between the three protagonists will seem familiar, if more balanced with a better actor in the La Boeuf role. The high point of the movie’s action, Cogburn’s one-on-four joust with Lucky Ned Pepper’s gang in a high mountain meadow, remains one of the most compelling sequences in any western. But there are other elements that are even more rewarding in the Coen brothers’ version than they were in the Hathaway movie. The conscientious use of period details and a somber palette of colors in the production design are very thorough and work well with the dialogue. There are upgrades in several of the roles: Hailee Steinfeld in her first film role is magnificent as young Mattie Ross, in a role that could easily just be strident and irritating in the wrong hands, and Matt Damon’s performance as La Boeuf is a marked improvement on non-actor Glenn Campbell’s version of the role. Rather than being a John Wayne vehicle (the original won Wayne his only Best Actor Oscar), this version is much more an ensemble effort. The ending is truer to Portis’ novel.

The music by Carter Burwell, with its theme based on a 19th-century hymn tune (“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” recognizable from 1955’s Night of the Hunter), feels not only authentic but haunting, and lends an elegiac tone to the entire film. The cinematography often makes use of sepia tones to suggest old photographs and natural 19th-century lighting in the wintry setting. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and La Boeuf (Matt Damon) confer on the trail. If anything, making this movie might be harder now than it was in 1969. The Coen brothers suggest that one reason is that rules for filmmaking with horses have become much more stringent in the intervening 40 years. The Coens could throw their 14-year-old lead actress into a freezing river with impunity, but the water had to be at least a certain minimum temperature to do the same with a horse. Among the less persuasive sequences are Rooster and Mattie’s desperate ride for medical help on the floundering Little Blackie.

One reason it’s less effective might be the inability to actually put such stress on an animal, and relying more on sound effects (such as the heavy equine breathing) and editing. The rhythms of the motions of the two riders on the horse don’t seem right in the closeups, and that may be because they weren’t actually on a horse for those shots. Nevertheless, the Old Testament flavor, from the initial scriptural “The wicked flee when no man pursueth…” (Proverbs 28:1), to the narrating Mattie Ross’s comment that a price must be paid for everything in this world save the grace of God, to the older Mattie’s thoughts on Rooster’s final resting place works very well. It gives both the younger and older Mattie a hard and unforgiving edge (not in precisely the same way), which serves her and Rooster well in the hard and unforgiving territory where they must navigate and with the hard and unforgiving men with whom they must deal.

In the end we see not only True Grit on display with the three principals, but the honest affection and regard in which they come to hold each other and the way they have re-shaped the course of each other’s lives, especially young Mattie’s. And there is a slight sadness for the ways in which the course of one’s life turns out to be other than one might have wished. Rooster Cogburn as played by the excellent Jeff Bridges (with the eye patch on the opposite eye from John Wayne) is more enigmatic, just as coarse, harder and, when the chips are down, just as capable and decisive as the earlier Cogburn. Although Bridges didn’t win an Oscar for this role, he was nominated. The supporting roles are well-played, especially Dakin Mathews as the horse trader Col. Stonehill in Fort Smith and Barry Pepper (scarcely recognizable in his woolly chaps, stringy hair and dental prosthetics) as Lucky Ned Pepper, head of the gang with which Chaney falls in. They play roles that were superbly played in the original by Strother Martin and Robert Duvall, and they hold their own.

Josh Brolin has little screen time as Tom Chaney and he seems a bit overly charismatic for someone who is after all just a stupid killer; but he is otherwise excellent in the role. This version of True Grit was a surprise success at the box office. The first $100 million western since the 1990s; it eventually passed Dances With Wolves to become the highest-grossing western ever made. It received ten Academy Award nominations , including Best Picture (although the field for that award had been doubled to ten films beginning the previous year), Best Director for the Coen brothers, Best Actor for Jeff Bridges (even though he’d won for Crazy Heart the previous year and John Wayne had won for the same role 40 years earlier, so chances of Bridges actually winning were minimal), and Best Supporting Actress for Hailee Steinfeld. It was also nominated for Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Roger Deakins’ Cinematography. It didn’t win any of them, defeated mostly by The King’s Speech. Save Save TRUE GRIT - Uncut Uncut 0shares 0shares The Coens – plus Jeff Bridges – take on John Wayne’s legacy. The result is a brilliant Western...

Product Overview Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld The new Coen brothers film is a remake of the popular 1969 Western that starred John Wayne as cantankerous, one- eyed US Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a role played here by Jeff Bridges. Wayne won his only Best Actor Oscar for his rowdy turn as Cogburn, playing the part broadly, cheerfully sending himself up. But this is very much Bridges’ carefully nuanced take on Rooster Cogburn, and he brings his own piss, vinegar and grumpy bluster to the part. We hear plenty about Reuben Cogburn before we finally meet him. According to the sheriff at Fort Smith, Arkansas, Cogburn is “a pitiless man, double tough, fear don’t enter into his thinking”. But still, he “loves to pull a cork”. Cogburn is being sought out by Mattie Ross, a 14 year-old girl who’s after retribution for her father’s murder – “robbed of life, a horse and two California gold pieces he carried in his pocket”. Mattie eventually finds Cogburn on the toilet. It’s hardly an auspicious introduction.

Craggy and irascible, marinated in whisky, he sleeps in a rope bed in a room behind a Chinese grocery. “A love of decency does not abide in you,” were, we learn, the parting words of his second wife. As a US Marshal, he claims to have killed “12, 15, stopping men in flight or defending myself et cetera”, but the count is far higher. Jeff Bridges looks fantastic, incidentally. His Cogburn is a solid, meaty man, like an elderly grizzly bear, with his one eye blazing away from behind an impressively shaggy grey beard. Unlike Wayne’s burlesque take on Cogburn, there’s an undercurrent of darkness in Bridges’ performance; a cumulative sense of what he’s done and what he’s seen having taken its toll. Bridges has previously done much excellent work in Westerns – Bad Company, Rancho Deluxe and Heaven’s Gate among them. But the most pertinent here might well be Walter Hill’s tremendous Wild Bill, where he played James Butler Hickok with the kind of gruff intransigency he also displays as Marshal Cogburn.

Mattie hires Cogburn to pursue her father’s killer, farm hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who’s fled into Indian country, where the law at Fort Smith has no jurisdiction. “It will not be a daisy-picking expedition,” Mattie is told. So she also hires a Texas Ranger, LeBoeuf (Matt Damon, mercifully obliterating the memory of Glen Campbell’s wooden performance in the original), who’s been chasing Chaney himself for several months. LeBoeuf is pompous, condescending: “I have lapped filthy water from a hoof print, and been glad for it.” The Coens are often drawn to such mismatched couplings – the Dude and Walter in The Big Lebowski, Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s hitmen in Fargo, the triple bill of stupids in O, Brother, Where Art Thou?. And typically, they enjoy the friction between Cogburn and LeBoeuf as they head deep into the Choctaw Nation with Mattie in tow.

It’s true, too, that the Coens have always made splendid use of language in their films – the regional dialects in Fargo spring to mind, or the rich Southern idioms to be found in O Brother… Here they roll around in Portis’ courtly, old-fashioned vernacular, particularly relishing the fractious back-and-forth between Cogburn and LeBoeuf. “I am a foolish old man,” howls Cogburn, “who has been dragged into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop.” The trek into Indian country moves into wild stretches of woodland and open plains experiencing the first dustings of winter snow – all beautifully shot by the Coens’ regular cinematographer Roger Deakins in earthy, rustic tones. There’s an unsettling encounter with a man dressed in a bear skin who practises dentistry for the Indians, and a fatal one with two outlaws holed up in a shack, before they finally catch up with Chaney.

He has taken up with ‘Lucky’ Ned Pepper (played with admirable menace by Barry Pepper, channelling Robert Duvall in the 1967 original) and his gang – “a congress of louts” with impressively bad teeth. Inevitably, this is where we finally learn who really has true grit. In many ways, True Grit might appear to be an unusually straight-faced genre exercise for the Coens. If their Oscar winner No Country For Old Men felt like a contemporary Western, then True Grit seems very much the real deal, with the high country locations redolent of, say, Anthony Mann’s films. Conspicuously, there is none of the brothers’ usual up-ending of their chosen genre – none of the sly spin they brought to, say, film noir in Miller’s Crossing or vintage screwball comedies in The Hudsucker Proxy. The film has the Coens’ wintry humour, sure – but that was always a major attribute of Portis’ novel. If anything, True Grit feels very much part of the Coens ongoing exploration of times and places in American history.

And, as with Marge Gunderson in Fargo, the Coens locate at the heart of True Grit a feisty, morally upstanding female character. Hailee Steinfeld is tremendous as the tenacious Mattie – “You give very little sugar with your pronouncements,” LeBoeuf admonishes her rather sourly. “I admire your salt,” she is told approvingly elsewhere, and you certainly have to give props to a character who spends one night early on in the film sleeping in an undertaker’s office surrounded by corpses: “I felt like Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones,” she admits unwaveringly. Matt Damon is equally fine here on his first outing for the Coens. “Never doubt the Texas Ranger, ever stalwart,” he crows. But the peacock preening aside, Damon gradually, unshowily reveals LeBoeuf to be a staunch ally for Mattie and Cogburn. Of course, you may conclude that True Grit is really about Jeff Bridges, giving another peerless performance for the Coens – his first since The Big Lebowski.

It’s true enough that Bridges is currently enjoying a long-deserved purple patch – his Oscar for Crazy Heart last year, while last month, incredibly, he toplined a major studio blockbuster, Tron: Legacy. Without sounding churlish, one invariably wishes these successes had come instead for many of the frankly better films he’s made in the past 40 years. But certainly, with True Grit he’s done great work in a great film. When we see Cogburn in full flight – riding against four armed men – this is rousing stuff. You’d like to think the Duke himself would be applauding the Dude from afar. MICHAEL BONNER Screen Junkies 3 Westerns That Are Actually Remakes something here Edgy, gritty, and far more memorable that the original films on which they were based, these examples of westerns that are actually remakes feature powerful performances by Academy Award winning actors like Jeff Bridges and Christian Bale and have provided stars like Jimmy Stewart with some of their most well known roles. Surpassing the originals in both scope and tone, these blockbuster films are infused with boldness and intensity, proving that our heroes will always be cowboys. Giddy up.

“True Grit” Nominated for a number of Academy Awards , this gritty 2011 western about a drunken U.S. Marshall hired by a teenage girl bent on finding the criminal who killed her father is a remake of the 1969 classic starring John Wayne as gruff U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. Directed by Indie icons Joel and Ethan Coen , the remake of “True Grit” starred Jeff Bridges as Cogburn as well as a number of blockbuster stars like Josh Brolin and Matt Damon . Darker and more action oriented than the original, the film is packed with authentic Western-era dialogue and sarcasm, as well as the moody tone for which the Coen Brothers are known. The original film earned John Wayne his only Academy Award in 1970, while the remake garnered a wealth of nominations including a Best Actor nomination for Bridges, a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 14-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld , and Best Picture.

“3:10 to Yuma” This exceptionally dark and suspenseful 2007 drama starred Russell Crowe and Christian Bale and told the story of a indebted ranch hand hoping to wipe his slate clean by escorting a notorious outlaw to the titular train—a train headed for a courthouse so that he can answer for his crimes. Based on a little known 1957 film starring legendary cowboy Glenn Ford, this remake featured Crowe’s masterful portrayal of philosophical outlaw Ben Wade, balanced perfectly by superstar Christian Bale's Dan Evans, fresh off his success from “Batman Begins.” The result is a powerful film that differs greatly in tone that blurs the line between hero and villain, highlighted by a particularly brilliant—if not disturbing—performance by actor Ben Foster as Wade’s second-in-command, Charlie Prince. “Destry Rides Again” An early example of westerns that are actually remakes is the 1939 classic “Destry Rides Again” which proved to be one of actor Jimmy Stewart’s best known films.

Like “3:10 to Yuma,” “Destry Rides Again” was based on an obscure 1932 film starring iconic Western actor Tom Mix and completely surpassed the original film to the point where the original has since been retitled "Justice Rides Again" in order to separate itself from its more famous remake. The film, about a famous lawman named Destry played by Stewart who takes back a crooked town from a murderous outlaw, lacked the stale, B-movie dialogue and cheesy action of the original and played up the small town charm of Jimmy Stewart—a natural charisma that was heightened by the on-screen chemistry between Stewart and female lead, Marlene Deitrich. True Grit: Jeff Bridges gets thumbs up in the remake of western but remarkable newcomer Hailee Steinfeld | Daily Mail Online comments It's been one of the most anticipated films of the forthcoming awards season - and now, the first people have had a chance to see the remake of the classic John Wayne western True Grit.

The new version - directed by the Coen Brothers (No Country For Old Men and O, Brother Where Art Thou?) is not released in the U.S until Christmas Day - but cast members attended a special screening of the film in Hollywood on Thursday night. Among those who attended were star Jeff Bridges, who takes over where Wayne left off in the role of one-eyed Marshall Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn. Rooster's back: Jeff Bridges and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld star in the True Grit remake and were among those stars at the screening The 61-year-old - who could be in line for his second consecutive Oscar after winning this year for his role in Crazy Heart - looked laid-back as he posed for photos with newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who also stars in the film. Hailee, 14 - who plays a key role in the film as Mattie, the teenage girl who hires Rooster to avenge her father's death - seemed to be enjoying all the attention. Wearing a short black lace dress and boots, the teenager was all smiles as she was snapped with the stars of the film, as well as veteran actress Kim Darby, who played Mattie in the 1969 original.

New and old faces: Hailee Steinfeld posed with actress Kim Darby, who played her role in the original film while co-star Josh Brolin brought his wife Diane Lane Others who attended the screening included actor Josh Brolin, who stars in the film as bad guy Tom Chaney, and his actress wife Diane Lane. Bridges' actor brother Beau was also among those who watched the film in Beverly Hills. Early reviews of the film have been largely positive, with trade papers Variety and the Hollywood Reporter among those who have already cast their verdict. Brothers in arms: Jeff Bridges' actor sibling Beau was among the other guests at the screening Variety critic Peter Debruge said, 'Bridges pulls off a total physical reinvention, complete with whiskey-stained moustache, rotting underbite and trademark eyepatch. The actor seems to have absorbed the character into his very marrow.' However Hollywood Reporter reviewer Todd McCarthy had some reservations, saying that the film lacked much of the humour which characterised the original and the book on which it is based. He also described Jeff Bridges' performance as 'engaging but not dominant' - with his main praise reserved for Steinfeld.

'Mattie is everything she's meant to be in Steinfeld's exceedingly accomplished performance,' McCarthy said. 'Dark haired and clear-eyed, Steinfeld convincingly conveys the character's refusal to be deterred, without a trace of gamine-like coyness or girlish cuteness.' Elsewhere, critic David Poland on the website Movie City News described Steinfeld's performance as 'remarkable'. The film sees Bridges' character Cogburn hired by Mattie, a stubborn young girl to help track down her father's murderer, Tom Chaney played by Josh Brolin, and avenge his death. The girl insists on accompanying Cogburn, against his wishes, and the pair set out on a journey into the Indian nations. Ross and Cogburn are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, played by Matt Damon, who has ulterior motives for hunting down the unsuspecting killer.

Old drunk: Bridges plays Marshall Cogburn, an aggressive drunk who is hired by a young girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfield) to track down her father's murderer Old timer: John Wayne's character Marshall Cogburn, right, is played by Jeff Bridges in the remake of the 1969 film which won the acting legend an Oscar Director Ethan Coen has previously said that the film will be a more faithful adaptation of the novel than the 1969 version. It focuses more on Mattie's point of view, and as you might expect from the makers of the bloody action film No Country For Old Men - which also starred Brolin - it is more violent. Coen said :'It's partly a question of point-of-view. The book is entirely in the voice of the 14-year-old girl. That sort of tips the feeling of it over a certain way.

True Grit Review by Jen Yamato | Movies.com DVD Information Who’s In It: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Elizabeth Marvel, Dakin Matthews The Basics: When her father is killed by the cowardly crook Tom Chaney, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires gruff U.S. Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down and insists on coming along on the manhunt. Along the way, they’re joined by a dandy Texas Ranger named La Boeuf (Matt Damon), who wants to bring Chaney in to stand trial for previous crimes. As the unlikely posse gets closer to catching Chaney and the gang of robbers he’s taken up with, all three heroes find their courage tested, emblems of a bygone era in American history when having “true grit” still meant something. What’s The Deal: In filming Charles Portis’s novel of the same name, previously adapted into a slightly less faithful 1969 John Wayne starrer, Joel and Ethan Coen have crafted a subtle masterpiece at once alike and unlike their other films.

Seemingly simple and straightforward upon first glance, the handsome period Western blossoms considerably into a profound nostalgic experience, a deliberately styled homage to the great American past, its rough and honorable heroes (and villains), and to the Western genre itself. Ever present beneath the surface is that trademark dark Coen wit, played with expert precision by Bridges as a “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of lawman with a reputation for brutality and a taste for drink. But the biggest revelation of True Grit is 14-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who turns in an astonishing debut performance as the tenacious little girl who shows grown men what it means to have strength of character, determination, and courage in the face of impossible odds. Together, Bridges and Steinfeld make the best on-screen duo of the year, in the best film of the year. On Honor Among Men (And Women) On Both Sides Of The Law: Each character in True Grit is morally complex and has something to prove, making for a captivating ensemble of individuals with their own internal crosses to bear.

Cogburn struggles to prove that he’s not just a bloodthirsty opportunist with a lawman’s badge and constantly butts heads with La Boeuf, an honor bound officer who disdains Cogburn’s unscrupulous ways but has yet to prove his own effectiveness. Even the outlaw Ned Pepper is a walking contradiction; portrayed by Barry Pepper in one of the best supporting turns of the year, he’s a wild-eyed career criminal with deeper moral scruples than any other character in the film and also the only person who instantly gives Mattie Ross the respect she deserves. A Retro Western With That Coen Touch: The writer-directors embrace Portis’s snappy antiquated dialogue with gusto and pepper the script with their own darkly humorous moments and eccentric characters, but it’s all tempered with a deep respect for the characters and the grand, idealistic themes of the source material. The sight that surprises Bridges’s Cogburn in the middle of a snowy forest is a comic highlight that you don’t see in the 1969 film version.

Best Supporting Score: From the very first notes of the film, longtime Coen collaborator Carter Burwell creates an aural world for characters to inhabit with a haunting spiritual score based on period hymns. (Because of the source material, Burwell’s score is ineligible for Oscar consideration.) Burwell’s lingering work does as much to construct True Grit’s majestic feeling as Roger Deakins’s cinematography, echoing the emotional currents of the story long after the credits begin to roll. Share

Question: Films - Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon starred in a remake of which famous western?
Answer: TRUE GRIT