True Grit (2010)

Turn the subtitles on. Jeff Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn like a man gargling gravel through his mustache, and a good chunk of his lines vanish into it. That, plus a middle stretch where the hunt wanders through the woods in no hurry, is the whole list of complaints. Hailee Steinfeld owns this movie. Mattie Ross talks like a lawyer stuck inside a teenager’s braids, and watching her grind a horse trader down to his last nerve beats most movie shootouts. Matt Damon’s LaBoeuf is a vain Texas Ranger who keeps getting cheerfully humiliated, and his contest with Rooster, shooting corn dodgers out of the air, is the dumbest, best argument in the film. Josh Brolin shows up late and plays Chaney as a dim, whiny letdown, which is exactly the point. It made $171.2 million domestic. An 8.6 because it’s funny, sad and beautiful with zero wasted words, except the ones you can’t hear. $146.64 says you haggle at the next yard sale like Mattie Ross and walk off with the lamp for a dollar.

What works: Hailee Steinfeld runs the whole movie as Mattie, all ledgers and nerve, and the winter landscapes look like old paintings.

What doesn’t: Rooster mumbles so thickly that whole lines disappear, and the middle of the hunt wanders without much urgency.

Who it’s for: People who want a Western where the toughest person on the trail is a fourteen-year-old who keeps receipts.