Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross's father has been shot in cold blood by the coward Tom Chaney, and she is determined to bring him to justice. Enlisting the help of a trigger-happy, drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, she sets out with him -- over his objections -- to hunt down Chaney. Her father's blood demands that she pursue the criminal into Indian territory and find him before a Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf catches him and brings him back to Texas for the murder of another man.

The western is not dead most of the time it is just that sleeping giant you forget about tell it rears its big head. The reason the western was so popular for quite sometime is that it gave us grand stages and landscapes that we could mix in heroes and villains on with stories of good versus evil. But as tastes change that gritty and simplistic view became replaced with more modern and realistic CGI forgetting that sometimes mother nature still provides the best CGI. So every few years another western comes out and knocks are socks off and reminds us about films of an earlier era. True Grit is one of those films that is beautiful and compelling backed by a good story and good acting and leaves you wishing for more films of its caliber be they a western or something else.

The Coen’s were and are the best choice to remake the iconic film of the late 1960’s starring one of the greatest western stars ever John Wayne. The reason they make such a good choice is the original just like the remake had a very tongue in cheek humor to itself. It was your typical good versus evil story but with characters that felt real and not fictitious with all their foibles and silliness and drunkenness that you might expect real men of that era were like. And the Coen’s capture that spirit and that silliness of the original and do justice to the original all the while giving the story a touch of their own and making it to be a Coen’s film.

What I enjoyed about the remake the most is that it has more of a sense of realism than the original. It still stays true to the originals characters and story but it also gives it that modern day touch that almost feels like you are on the trail of the bad guys with Rooster. There is that feel of realism that Technicolor films never truly captured, that graininess and dirt and grime feel like you had just gotten off the dusty trail yourself all the while still capturing the beauty of the original.

While I enjoyed the performance of Jeff Bridges as Rooster there is no replacing John Wayne as he had a swagger that will likely never be duplicated. Bridges does a good job as good as could be expected but there was and only will ever be one Duke and a reason that he won the best actor for this performance. Matt Damon turns in a good performance of a sniveling lawman as does Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross. True Grit is a good film that does justice to the original all the while being a film that stands on its own two feet and reminds us the western is not dead just sleeping.

Grade: B+