As soon as it was known the Coen brothers were planning a new film of True Grit, the internet grumbling started in force.
Why remake a great film, demanded the whingers? Well, maybe distance adds charm, but the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, directed by reliable veteran Henry Hathaway, really isn’t that great.
It’s mostly remembered for an overweight John Wayne spoofing his own image, getting drunk and falling off his horse. (True, the role won him his only Oscar, but that was essentially the John Wayne Award For Being John Wayne.)
At 128 minutes Hathaway’s film is overlong and rambling. The ending slides into a sentimentality that’s absent from Portis’ novel.
As Texas ranger Le Boeuf, second-billed crooner Glen Campbell is plain inadequate – worse, if you can credit it, than Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. Not a disastrous film, all things considered, but one that’s surely ripe for a remake.
And so, 40 years on, here come Joel and Ethan with their take on the story. It’s their first true western – OK, there were western elements in No Country For Old Men, but this is the real McCoy.
Set in the late 1870s, it’s their first period movie set pre-20th Century (unless you count the dybbuk prologue to A Serious Man).
And it’s their return to remake territory, which they explored with regrettable results in 2004’s The Ladykillers.
So with all that riding on it, how do the brothers do? Pretty damn well.
For a start, this is way better than Hathaway’s movie. Not that they’ve messed around with the story; for all their supposed irreverence, the Coens treat their literary sources with respect.
As before, this is the tale of Mattie Ross, an exceptionally mature and level-headed 14-year-old from Arkansas, who sets out to track down her father’s killer with the help of a boozy, one-eyed US Marshal named ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, with occasional interference from Texas ranger, La Boeuf. The ranger, this time round, is played by Matt Damon, a huge improvement on Campbell – well, who wouldn’t be?
But all credit to Damon, who plays down the Texan’s vanity and braggadocio, leaving just enough of it in evidence to be funny without being off-putting.
