A Must-Watch 2010 Western With A 95% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Streaming For Free

In 2007, the Coen Brothers made a defining Neo-Western film by adapting Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men." The Western bug must've bit them because soon after, they made a film taking place in the old Wild West itself: 2010's "True Grit," currently streaming for free on Tubi and Pluto TV.

Set in 1878, "True Grit" follows 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) seeking justice on her father's killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She hires over the hill, one-eyed U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to help. Rooster is bemused by the determined Miss Ross but comes to care for her.

The Coens adapted "True Grit" from Charles Portis's 1968 novel, which had previously been made into a John Wayne picture in 1969. While the comparisons between the movies are unavoidable, Ethan Coen described (to IGN) his and his brother's "True Grit" less as a remake, more as a truer adaptation of the book. The Coens found the original text both funnier and more violent and cynical than the '69 movie, and so wanted to honor that. Honor it they did.

Bridges easily outdoes Wayne as Cogburn. The '69 "True Grit" was the John Wayne show. ("True Grit" won Wayne an Oscar really given as a lifetime achievement award.) Bridges' Cogburn performance as the ornery and drunken Cogburn is less dignified, and thus more compelling. The Coens also chose to cast an age-appropriate actress as Mattie, who'd been played by the 22-year-old Kim Darby in '69. We at /Film believe that Steinfeld as Mattie delivers the best performance in a Coen brothers movie. Inexperienced and aged 14, she still holds herself up equal with Bridges, Brolin, and Matt Damon.

Steinfeld's Mattie wears her hair in pigtails of girlish youth, yet she dresses in a coat for a gunslinger twice her height. Her hat's opening is stuffed with newspapers lest the brim block her eyes. She's undeniably precocious, yet not cheery and eager to prove herself as child characters like that usually are. She's as tough as the grown men around her, an unbending negotiator, quick-witted with insults, and fearless (if incapable by inexperience) under gunfire. As gang leader Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) observes, Mattie "[does] not varnish [her] opinions," even to men inclined to kill her.

There's never that one moment you expect where Mattie's courage fails her and her "true" childish self appears. She's exactly who she presents herself as. Her addressing adults as peers, let alone accompanying lawmen in a posse, shows how she sits on the thin line of confidence and delusion.

Mattie's insistent nature also shows her immaturity; she's not old enough to know when to take the easy way out. Before setting off with Cogburn, Mattie writes her mother calling hunting Chaney a "grand adventure." In truth, the pursuit is largely uneventful stretches of horse-riding over empty land and arguments between her companions.

The Coens write bumblers; see "Fargo," "Burn After Reading," etc. Coen bros-written criminals and schemers learn, time and time again, that "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray," only without the "best laid" part. Mattie, the child, is the one who stays focused as Cogburn and Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) argue "like women." One day when Rooster wakes up drunk, he and La Boeuf stop for an impromptu shooting contest. They might as well have whipped out their dicks if there wasn't a young lady present.

The prideful La Boeuf, lassoed and dragged by the Pepper gang, bites through his tongue, leaving him with a lisp that undercuts said pride. When Mattie finally catches up to Chaney, he's the most oafish man of all; contemptible as he is, he's an unworthy quarry of her perseverance. 

Now as great as Steinfeld is, "True Grit" doesn't succeed without Jeff Bridges, the way Mattie — her true grit and all — needed Rooster's help. As Cogburn, Bridges roughs up his easygoing voice into a rumpled drawl, hoarsened by Rooster's tobacco habit, but the Coens' beautiful lines make his growl of a voice endearing. This being a Coens' movie, the dialogue is as compelling as any gunslinging. 

Take Mattie haggling with a trader (Dakin Matthews) over the price of two ponies, purchased by her later father. There's no real danger but it's one of the movie's most intense scenes. Short of "Deadwood" and its Shakespearean-patterned dialogue, there's no Western I can think of with dialogue as verbose yet rhythmic as the Coens' "True Grit."

"True Grit" will please your eyes too with Roger Deakins' warm cinematography. As your eyes soak up those images, your ears will notice a recurring piano riff. That'd be an adaptation of the famous hymn, Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha Hoffman's "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." If there's anyone who Mattie has more faith in than herself, it's in God, though the hymn's lyrics only ring out (performed by country folk singer Iris DeMent) during the end credits. It's a rendition worthy of the film and, along with the too brief sub two hour runtime, will keep you anchored in your seat as those credits roll.

"True Grit" can be found on Tubi here and Pluto TV here.