True Grit.

My most anticipated film of the year so far. Coen brothers, directing Jeff Bridges, remaking a seminal John Wayne western. Now, I know they'v denied they're remaking the John Wayne film, and have gone back to the original novel and thus are presenting something completely original. I call bullshit on that. Yes, fine, you went back and developed you own script. But you can't stand around pretending that you, your actors or your audience are not going to be aware that John Wayne went here first, and won his only Oscar for it.

However, while I don't believe that it's wrong to make the comparison, nor do I think that the Coen brothers should be afraid of that comparison being made. Because what they've done here is produce a far superior film.

Jeff Bridges plays Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn, a legendary, notorious US Marshall, notorious for his relentless nature, and high mortality rates of those he tracks down.

Hailee Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross, a 14 year old girl whose father has recently been killed by a man called Tom Chaney. She is absolutely determined that Chaney will be brought to justice, and that she will be there to see it. To this end, she offers Cogburn a bounty to help her bring him in.

Matt Damon plays LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger who has his own reasons for tracking Chaney.

The three of them form an unlikely alliance, with all three of them at any given time probably wishing they could do the job alone. They head into 'Indian Territory' to pursue Chaney, who is said to have banded up with an outlaw called Ned Pepper, who Cogburn is also interested in bringing in.

What's great in this film is the interplay. While the John Wayne film had essentially one great performance, this one has at least three. Cogburn is by turns a steely eyed killer and a rolling drunk. Mattie is a prim little girl, capable well beyond her years, with implacable iron will. LaBoeuf is a bit of a puffed up tit, full of aphorisms and opinions. At any given time, any two of them can and will team up and side against the other for their shortcomings, with the girl often being the sole voice of reason. They bicker and fight, and it's *funny*. I was surprised to realise that though the film has its melancholy side, the Coen brothers film it most reminds me of is The Big Lebowski, which gained an awful lot of its comedy by taking a pretty standard Raymond Chandleresque plot and inserting instead a bunch of oddballs. Same rules apply here. You could happily watch these three do just about anything.

But, as I said, this film also has its melancholy side. Not to the same degree as, say, A Serious Man, or No Country For Old Men, but there's that same sense of unfairness and futility of the world. Mattie's dad's dead, and nothing will bring him back. Cogburn is well past his best, and nothing's going to change that. The outlaws, Chaney included, aren't sinister, powerful, evil men. They're men on the wrong side of the law, scratching out a pointless existence, until some day someone like Cogburn eventually comes along to put a stop to it - and that's the only way out of this life for them, being eventually hunted down for money by a man who's barely any better than them. Chaney himself is a pretty pitiable wretch, and there's a sense, when we finally meet him of "all this, just for him?" This, to me, is where the film scores highest over the John Wayne version. John Wayne faces down his foes at the end, and there's a sense of his rebirth, of the old man being young again. A cheery little patriotic tune plays. Whereas here, there's no big celebration. Ignoble men are brought to an ignoble end, by a man who's only really any use for killing.

This, then, is the genius on show here, because for all the protests, the raw scripts seem pretty similar to me. The Coen brothers, however, do not want to show us a tale of heroic exploits, they're showing us something altogether darker, and more human.