True Grit: I Like The Duke Better

I finally saw the Coen Brothers' film True Grit. I watched the film on cable last night.

As I'm a fan of the 1969 Henry Hathaway film that starred John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, the big, fat, boozy deputy U.S. Marshal with considerable "true grit," I've been looking forward to seeing what the Coen brothers do with the material.

Although the Coens insist their film is not a remake of the John Wayne film, comparisons are inevitable.

I like the Coen's small, odd, comic touches, such as the scene with Mattie Rose (Hailee Stein) talking to Rooster (Jeff Bridges) while he is in an outhouse.

I liked the look of the Coen film. I liked the music. I also liked hearing Mattie Ross' voice over narration at the beginning of the film and seeing her as a grown woman at the end of the film.

I thought Matt Damon was an improvement over Glen Campbell (who was not an actor), and although I thought Hailee Stein was very good for such a young girl, I also liked Kim Darby's performance as Mattie Ross in the original film.

Jeff Bridges is a fine actor, and I loved him as "the Dude" in the Coen brother's The Big Lepowski, but I don't think he measured up to John Wayne as Rooster.

Rooster is a larger-than-life character and only an actor with an immense screen presence like John Wayne can do the character justice. Wayne gave a much more animated, robust and funnier performance than Bridges, in my view.

Of course, a remake of a film does not cancel out the older film.

We have both films and we can like both of them for different reasons. And I hope the Coen Brothers' film helps to bring Charles Portis new and younger readers.

You can read my earlier post on True Grit via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/09/true-grit-updated-by-coen-brothers.html