Review of True Grit (2010) by Tencatija — 23 Dec 2010

Well first off, I am a huge John Wayne fan. I have watched almost all of his movies, with this being one of my favorites. I was a little nervous on how Jeff Bridges was going to do in regards to taking on John Wayne's previous role and surprisingly, I thought he did a pretty good job.

As a whole, I thought all of the acting was well done and particularly thought Hailee Steinfeld did an excellent job with portraying the role of Mattie Ross. I also thought some scenes were better than the original, like the scene where Rooster is trying to squeeze the information out of the two men in the cabin and one guy chops the other guys fingers off and stabs him in the heart and Rooster blows that guy's head off.

I thought that seen kept the suspense moving and really moved the audience. However, I thought the first half of the movie really didn't build up the story at all and the fact that an hour of the movie took place in the town, I felt like that made the second half of the movie (the action scenes) feel rushed and we, the audience, didn't get the feeling of evil that is supposed to be portrayed through the rival gang of cowboys.

The other thing that I felt really hurt the movie was the focus that was on how Rooster is a drunk. There was probably 3 different scenes that was focusing on how he's a drunk and I felt like that really hurt the plot.

Overall, I thought the movie was good but most definitely not as good as the original. Hats off to you John Wayne...