TRUE GRIT: That didn't pan out, did it?
TRUE GRITStarring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Paramount
Review by Louis Fowler
Walking rather despondently out of TRUE GRIT, I was stopped dead in my tracks when a cold, brutal realization finally hit me: I just don't like the Coen Brothers. And, the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that I don't think I honestly ever had.
Oh, in conversations with other film-inclined friends with more assertive opinions I'd say things like “THE HUDSUCKER PROXY is a really underrated movie!” or “Hey, that guy over there didn't like BARTON FINK, let's beat the crap out of him!” or, and this I am truly ashamed of, “Yeah, I'd love to attend your BIG LEBOWSKI party! I'll bring the Kahlua!”, but it was really just a plea for pathetic acceptance from indie video-store clerks or a shortcut to impressing dumb alternative-girls who thought that I actually cared about their opinions when the whole time I was just imagining what it would be like to make-out with a girl who had tongue-ring.
I have patronized their movies out of a sense of imagined cinematic duty. With every release, I have mindlessly marched straight to the theater, laughed at all the arranged moments I was supposed to and, yet...even though there was this total sense of audience camaraderie, one where we were all on the same imagined level, I couldn't help but always be disappointed. Is this all there is to it? Why bother? But I couldn't ask those questions out loud, so I just kept it in, feeling quasi-depressed because I knew, deep down, I should like it. Everyone else likes it. Why can't I like it? After all, a million Coen Brothers fans can't be wrong, right?
FARGO? An over-acted mess. MILLER'S CROSSING? A snooze-fest. THE BIG LEBOWSKI? Tries way too hard. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY? Is that even a real movie? RAISING ARIZONA? I'll wait for the inevitable remake. THE LADYKILLERS? What's that again? O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Take a shower, hippie! BLOOD SIMPLE? Couldn't make it twenty minutes, flipped over to a rerun of THREE'S COMPANY, had a great time!
We only like the Coens because we feel like we “have” to, lest we be called out by that guy at the water-cooler who can spout off three or four quick key-phrases from Owen Gliberman's ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY review. The Coen Brothers makes us feel cinematically smarter than we really are, so we keep this ruse going. By seeing a Coen Brothers movie, that is more than enough proper personal penance for choosing a, say, Adam Sandler fart-movie over the latest Gaspar Noe art-house atrocity. It's accessible cinephilia for the masses! And none of those pesky subtitles either! Ain't I classy, ma?Once you look past the incessant critical coddling and non-stop audience fellating, it becomes eerily easy to see that there is really nothing there except just really well-staged smoke and mirrors. The Coens are exceedingly talented technical directors, and can paint a mighty pretty picture to look at. But it's the type of picture you'd hang on the wall of a Ruby Tuesday's. It's a fantastic forgery of the real thing. They have a good eye, but no soul to make it matter.
TRUE GRIT is the film where not only have I proved myself internally right all along, but am at a point where I can say it out loud externally without fear of a social retribution—I've been a video store clerk and I've had a girl with a tongue-ring and both were sorely disappointing and not worth the effort.
Like every other movie the Coens have done, TRUE GRIT is visually stunning, but it's also cold and detached and unknowingly reptilian. Never once are they able to convey any type of “real” human emotion, even with the most talented of actors at their disposal. It's robotic, Aspergerian filmmaking at it's finest. They've got a steely, textbook knowledge of film history and design, but they can't put to use in a way that will ever emotionally connect. But, it looks so good that, when you're walking out, you think you've seen something that matters, something that is better than it really is.
That sums up TRUE GRIT.
A few hours before watching the remake, I sat down and took in the original 1969 John Wayne version. I probably wasn't supposed to do that, but I had never cognizantly seen it and felt like I should and...dammit, is it a good movie. A great movie. Old-school high-adventure, with a real story and real heart and, something that's lost these days, a real hero to carry it all. There was no darkness, no cynicism, no pandering to the turtleneckers—only the most pure of long-dead stoicism that needed no dime-store rationale for it's blatant masculinity.With the weight of the original and the excitement I felt while watching it heavy on my mind, it became completely clear as I was watching the remake that the Coens' version just doesn't matter. It has no reason for it's existence other than to prove that they could do it and, cynically enough, do it better. Like I said, it all looks great, but it's not great. It's defenselessly mediocre. It could've been a Hallmark TV movie of the week and had just about the same amount of impact and at a fraction of the cost.
The only one with enough sense to try something different is Jeff Bridges' interpretation of drunken US Marshall Rooster Cogburn. Knowing that he can't live up to the Duke, Bridges is twice as grizzled and three times as drunk, too bad it's just Bad Blake all over again, a hundred or so years earlier. Which, when you think about, kinda makes the movie a bit more watchable.
Am I still, however, interested in what the Coens do next? Of course. I honestly wanted to like TRUE GRIT and, even though I was let down again, you know...maybe next time will be the time these boys finally get it right. If they do, I'll be the first to admit it. Especially if you've got a toungue-ring and want to make out.
(This review actually goes double for David Fincher's interminable THE SOCIAL NETWORK.)
Labels: coen brothers, jeff bridges, john wayne, losing readers, movies that are unnessesary to exist, overrated, popular kids, this is why people think i am a contrarian, true grit, westerns
posted by Louis Fowler at 1/14/2011 07:37:00 PM
16 Comments:
THE LADYKILLERS remake is the most underrated comedy of the last ten years. And critics and Coen nerds despised it. I think because it made liberals the butt of all the best jokes. And nobody actually likes INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. Anybody that does is either a Billy Bob Thornton die-hard or lying.
Hey dude heard it wasn't as good as the orig but if your like me and never saw the orig it is worth while... there is nothing I can do for ya son boom...
"The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Barton Fink" are awful, awful movies. Every filmmaker makes at least one in a long career. However, they more than made up for those monstrosities with "Miller's Crossing."
I LOVE Fargo and I like O Brother Where Art Thou, but I'd give True Grit a C- if I was being generous. Boring, overall.
I loved True Grit. I made a point of going to a 1940s era historic theater in Baltimore and it was a magical experience for us. The performances Hailee Steinfield and Barry Pepper's performances pulled me straight in.
Never saw the original. This may too much about me, but I saw a few John Wayne films as an angry early 80s teen and my adolescent response was that he was a swaggering phony. I've never bothered to go back. I realize that this drops my credibility significantly, but I'll live.
You make a valid observation about the artificiality of some of their productions. I always felt that that fucking bowling movie was tedious and clever for cleverness's own sake and not much else. But then, I'm not very deep.
How can you write an article disparaging the Coens and not give us your thoughts on No Country?
Some of the moments in that film there like Anton Chigurh in the convenience store -- wow. I loved it, but did feel it was a bit of a rambly mess on first viewing.
I suppose the formula for them to hit it out of the park with me as a viewer hinges on whether or not their lead actors can establish a connection with me. Miller's Crossing - hell yes. Lebowski - no.
"The Coens are exceedingly talented technical directors, and can paint a mighty pretty picture to look at. But it's the type of picture you'd hang on a wall of a Ruby Tuesday's."
I threw up my hands charismatic black church style at that line.
In general, I'd say I like the Coen brothers, although I end up disliking close to every other movie they make. But TRUE GRIT is a very good one.
I agree (except I liked Social Network).
The reason why Anton Chigurh is such a classic character is because he's the character the Coens' have probably related most to: cold, emotionless, robotic.
The best thing about Fargo was the damage it did to North Dakota's self esteem. You wouldn't believe how defensive they are up here about their image in the rest of the country.
As for the rest of your review, I was kind of thinking exactly the same thing recently about Judd Apatow.
I definitely agree that the Coens get by more on their reputation from critics and college kids who wallow in filthy beds of poseur profundity. However, some of their films are truly great. The feeling I get is that they're trying to give their films a literary quality, which sometimes, creates a perfect tone that gives their work extra resonance, and other times, gives it a unearned self-importance that's extremely off-putting.
Blood Simple is far too straightforward for all its hype; maybe you had to be there at the time, but it's certainly not breaking any new ground story-wise or cinematically.
Raising Arizona does have real goofy charm, especially Holly Hunter's character. She gives the film real soul, which is one of the things you do rarely find in Coen flicks.
Miller's Crossing, I felt, was a great gangster picture-- lovingly crafted like hand-carved woodwork, covered with the darkest, richest stainer possible. Gabriel Byrne needs more work.
Barton Fink is moody, beautifully photographed, and well acted, but it amounts to nothing besides some too-obscure musing on hell.
Fargo: what was the point? They tried to blend slice-of-life Midwestern adult drama with a hard-boiled crime story, and the results were mixed, to put it in its best light.
I skipped on the early-aughts comedies, so I have nothing to say about that.
No Country will become a classic, of that I'm sure. Underneath one of the most taut, viscerally exciting thrillers of recent memory, there's a real philosophical conflict bubbling. Tommy Lee Jones struggles with the vanity of a life spent fighting crime even as society degenerates into something far uglier. Javier Bardem embodies the ultimate refutation of Rousseau; he abandons all societal norms and is not a noble savage but merely a savage, and his near-destruction could have been prevented by institutions and laws (the car that crashed into him runs a red light). And, giving the film its heart, Josh Brolin is a simple man who would risk everything and sacrifice himself just to give his wife a better life.
A Serious Man had me through the first act. Then, when they turned the whole thing into an exhibition of straw man representations of theism, it all fell to crap. My parents lived through that time, and the way the kids were depicted rang absolutely false to them. And the film's non-ending reeks of Shyamalan in his most desperate shock-mongering.
True Grit, I liked it. Like all their films-- well shot, well acted, well paced. But I haven't thought about it at all after seeing it. It's a pleasant popcorn flick, and personally, I'm glad they could humble themselves enough to make it that way.
Best movie ever!
It had nothing to do with how "cool" I think the Cohen brothers are or how much cred I'm trying to create for myself. I loved True Grit. Cohen Brothers are hit and miss... I loathe some and I adore others. This is a movie I loved.
The fact that people are claiming that the Social Network was the best movie of 2010 only reveals just how shitty movies were in 2010. The Social Network reminded me of an HBO original movie you'd half-watch as you read a magazine. It was a decent mediocrity and nothing more.
Enjoyed the review... although I do love me some Fargo.
I did enjoy to some degree but I also walked out of the movie wondering what was the point of making it in the first place.
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