Kat with a K

Movie 3: True Grit

Title: True Grit
Year: 2010
Grade: 90
Date Seen: 1/8

Comments: A teen girl, a U.S. Marshal, and a Texas Ranger track down the girl's father's murderer in the Indian Nations in the late 1800s. (For the record, this is a remake, but I haven't seen the original.) I'll admit that the premise didn't really grab me, but I enjoyed this way more than I'd expected. Jeff Bridges gives a masterful performance, of course, but the real standout is newcomer Hailee Steinfeld (and yes, I could see her as Katniss in The Hunger Games). Her character is somewhat historically improbable (though of course not impossible), but she completely sells it. And Matt Damon gives a really interesting, nuanced performance as the cocky Texas Ranger who's also looking for the killer. Actually, now that I think about it, this movie reminded me of nothing so much as a grittier - sorry - version of the Little House books, which I've realized as an adult are really more terrifying than I'd ever thought. It's a cliche, but frontiers are really, really scary, and this movie did a great job of reminding us of that.