Coen Brothers' True Grit Is Pure Western Wizardry

True Grit, the Coen brothers’ latest, updates a John Wayne classic—though it may stick closer to the original novel than the first film. Critics are impressed, with the Rotten Tomatoes score currently at 95%:

• In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis applauds the film’s 13-year-old star, Hailee Steinfeld, who gives a “memorably ferocious performance” as a “character whose single-minded pursuit of vengeance has unmistakable resonance.”

• The film is “a winning western with just a few dark eddies beneath the surface, one that features a star-making lead performance and some spectacular photography,” writes Andrew O’Hehir in Salon. Still, it “falls just short of being great.”
• Writing in the New York Daily News, Joe Neumaier calls the movie a “wonderfully entertaining, beautiful Western drama that lets the quirks of the genre gallop freely as it keeps a tight rein throughout.”

(More Coen brothers stories.)