Coen Brothers' True Grit Is Pure Western Wizardry

Remake features a star turn by 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 22, 2010 1:50 PM CST

True Grit, the Coen brothers’ latest, updates a John Wayne classic—though it may stick closer to the original novel than the first film. Critics are impressed, with the Rotten Tomatoes score currently at 95%:

  • In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis applauds the film’s 13-year-old star, Hailee Steinfeld, who gives a “memorably ferocious performance” as a “character whose single-minded pursuit of vengeance has unmistakable resonance.”

  • The film is “a winning western with just a few dark eddies beneath the surface, one that features a star-making lead performance and some spectacular photography,” writes Andrew O’Hehir in Salon. Still, it “falls just short of being great.”
  • Writing in the New York Daily News, Joe Neumaier calls the movie a “wonderfully entertaining, beautiful Western drama that lets the quirks of the genre gallop freely as it keeps a tight rein throughout.”
(More Coen brothers stories.)

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