Putting aside the original 1969 film version of True Grit, for which John Wayne won his only Academy Award, the new screen adaptation is a good, solid, entertaining western. It’s tough to dislike a film made this skillfully.
Directors Joel and Ethan Coen, tackling their first full-blown western, are right at home in this milieu, and their screenplay is quite faithful to Charles Portis’ novel. It almost seems as if the Coens couldn’t make a bad movie if they tried. (That’s not a dare or challenge, only an appreciative observation.)
This True Grit is moodier and more atmospheric than the earlier film, with its period detail exquisitely realized by cinematographer Roger Deakins. The score, by Carter Burwell (like Deakins, a long-time Coen collaborator), is effective without being intrusive.
Her father having been shot dead, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailie Steinfeld) procures the services of “marshal” Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), an ornery, one-eyed roustabout, to track down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the dastard who did the deed. Mattie, however, insists on accompanying Cogburn, and they are soon joined by LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who has also been trailing Chaney. This unlikely trio sets forth to bring Chaney to justice, bickering much of the way.
In True Grit, the characters drive the story, which is essentially a straightforward chase scenario, and here again the Coens have chosen well their principal cast. Young Steinfeld, makes a strong screen debut as the assertive, no-nonsense Mattie, and Damon is appealing as the dogged but sympathetic LaBoeuf. Brolin and Barry Pepper (playing outlaw leader Ned Pepper) supply the requisite villainy, although their roles don’t entail much time on screen.
Of course, Bridges has the film’s most memorable role, and he plays the grizzled and grouchy Cogburn to the hilt. To laugh at Cogburn’s drunkenness is to underestimate his “true grit”; he’s a dangerous and violent man, yet there is a nobility (sullied though it may be) to his actions.
There are so few big-screen westerns these days — we’ll ignore this summer’s turkey Jonah Hex, which starred Brolin — that True Grit is a genuine holiday treat for aficionados of the genre. The film’s called True Grit, and it’s got true grit.
You get two Jeff Bridges’ for the price of one in TRON: Legacy, a belated (28 years!) follow-up to the 1982 sci-fi film in which he starred. Here, he reprises his original role as computer genius Kevin Flynn, and Flynn’s diabolical, digital alter-ego Clu.
Those viewers unfamiliar with the original TRON might not have a “clu” as to what’s going on, but there’s no denying the overall effectiveness of the presentation. Much like the earlier film, which was always a cult favorite but a box-office disappointment at the time (and, in an indirect way, forced Disney to change its image later in the decade), TRON: Legacy is a visual feast.
The earlier film boasted an early incarnation of digital special effects, which by now are commonplace, and the most effective section of this film is the initial introduction to the world of TRON.
The first half of the film is basically a rehash of the original film, with Kevin Flynn’s son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) being zapped into the alternate dimension created by his father. Or something like that. Virtual reality. Alternate reality. It’s all very computerized, very complicated and very silly — but that’s what makes it fun… at least to a point.
The film’s second half is bogged down by philosophical and political mumbo-jumbo, in which the Kevin and Sam must battle Clu’s minions, who (or which) are determined to enter into our reality and, one supposes, conquer us in their own variation of a digital revolution. Better the film had concentrated on the action and the effects and tightened the narrative, which becomes unwieldy. First-time director Joseph Kosinski does just fine showcasing the spectacle, but is a little shaky in the storytelling.
I Love You, Philip Morris is outrageous, outlandish and frequently hilarious. It’s one of the funniest films of the year, perhaps even more so because it’s based on a true story. (You couldn’t make this stuff up!) Jim Carrey is in his element as the irrepressible Steven Russell, an incurable romantic and incorrigible con artist, playing the role with comic abandon for which he’s renowned, yet never losing sight of the character’s humanity.
At one time, Steven was an upstanding member of the community — a husband, a father, a police officer. But he always led a double life. Not only did he have a knack for the fine art of the con, but he was also a closet homosexual. (The scene where he proclaims that he’s gay is one of Carrey’s many highlights here.)
During one of his numerous stints in prison, Steven meets fellow inmate Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor), and love blooms. No sooner is Steven released than he immediately resumes his wayward ways, quickly amassing a fortune (albeit illegally) and determined to share his wealth, his life and his love with Philip, who only belatedly starts to get an inkling that Steven isn’t quite all he appears to be.
Writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, also making their dual directing debut(s) here, have used Steve McVickers’ best-seller as a springboard for the story, structuring it both as a pseudo-biography and a corporate satire. I Love You, Philip Morris is a bit of a con job itself, but in the best way. More than once, it completely surprises — saving perhaps its wickedest, wittiest twist for the end.
McGregor is an outstanding complement to Carrey’s antics, conveying Philip’s navet without making the character a fool, and the two actors make rather an attractive screen couple. There’s also fine work in support from Leslie Mann as Steven’s blithely compassionate ex-wife and Antoni Corone as one of the many corporate big-wigs taken in by Steven’s chicanery. Given Carrey’s convincing (if totally false) pitch, one can hardly blame him.
