True Grit on DVD

Normally, I like Westerns okay, and True Grit is very Western, but it was just a little too strange for me. The characters were fascinating but perhaps overdone. The whole premise of the movie was kind of dark, although from a certain standpoint, it was lawful and right. Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross hires a marshal, and gets a Texas ranger in the bargain too, to hunt down the man who killed her father. Her stipulation: she goes along to make sure justice is served. Her obsession borders on revenge but seems to mostly be about justice when it comes right down to it.

Why is it that every Western is in shades of brown? I guess that's how the far American West is, even today, but it's such an iconic image: a horse and rider traveling over a vast, treeless expanse of brown grass. Of course, True Grit takes place near the beginning of winter, I believe, so that affects the scenery.

The ending of this movie could have turned my viewpoint toward it slightly had it been different, but I found it rather sad and not entirely satisfactory. The title of the movie, however, says it all. There couldn't be harder people in this story than these.

The movie stars Jeff Bridges as the marshal and Matt Damon as the Texas ranger. I didn't really recognize either of them, although I wondered, briefly, if Damon's character was a famous actor. His face was different enough that I couldn't pinpoint him. Hailee Steinfeld is the 14-year-old actress who plays Mattie, and she does an excellent job.

True Grit is a remake of a 1969 John Wayne film and is based on a 1968 novel by Charles Portis. It's rated PG-13 for Western violence, including hangings, shootings, and stabbings.