True Grit Family Review

A stubborn teenager enlists the help of a tough U.S. Marshal to track down her father's murderer.Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.—Jim Beaver <[email protected]>Farmer Frank Ross heads with his employee Tom Chaney to Fort Smith to buy some ponies. However, he is murdered by Chaney, who steals his money and flees to the Indian Territory. Frank's teenager daughter and book keeper of the family business Mattie Ross travel with an employee to bring the body of her father back home. Before meeting the undertaker, they see the hanging of three men sentenced by the tough Judge Parker. The stubborn Mattie seeks out the sheriff that tells her that he does not have authority in the Indian Nation. She asks who the best Marshall is and the sheriff recommends Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, a big old fellow with eye patch that has the grit to bring back criminals from the Indian Territory. Mattie hires the drunken Rooster and he plans to travel early in the morning with her. When Mattie is ready to depart, she finds that the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf had visited Rooster and proposed to share a huge reward for Tom Chaney in Texas for the murder of a senator. LaBoeuf and Rooster cross the river and Mattie joins them, and the unlikely trio begins its dangerous journey seeking out Tom Chaney in the Indian Territory.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilForty year old spinster Mattie Ross tells the story of when she was fourteen in the late nineteenth century, living in Yell County, Arkansas. Headstrong, willful, streetwise and stubborn, she felt she was best equipped between her mother and her younger brother to lead the charge to avenge the murder of her father, Frank Ross, by hired hand Tom Chaney while the two were in Fort Smith, Arkansas to run errands, the murder occurring when Tom was drunk. She learned that Tom most likely joined Lucky Ned Pepper's gang, had probably headed into the Choctaw Nation's territory, and that no one was after Tom for the murder. Believing she needed the assistance of a US marshal to carry out her mission, she decided, from the three suggested to her by the Fort Smith sheriff, to choose eye-patch adorned Rueben "Rooster" Cogburn, the most ruthless of the bunch, he being a man who generally shot to kill first before asking questions - in other words, a man with true grit. She had certain regrets in choosing Rooster if only because of his frequent take to drink. Despite Rooster's want to kill Lucky Ned, convincing him to take the job and to take her along - she insisting to ensure she got her money's worth - was more difficult than she had hoped. Another problem in Mattie getting what she believed was true justice was a Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf, who was also after Tom, but for the murder of a Texas senator. If LeBoeuf got to Tom first, LeBoeuf would take him back to Texas to stand trial for that murder, instead of Tom paying for the murder of her father.—HuggoFourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) joins an aging U.S. marshal (Jeff Bridges) and another lawman (Matt Damon) in tracking her father's killer into hostile Indian territory in Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Charles Portis' original novel. Sticking more closely to the source material than the 1969 feature adaptation starring Western icon John Wayne, the Coens' True Grit tells the story from the young girl's perspective, and re-teams the celebrated filmmaking duo with their No Country for Old Men producing partner Scott Rudin. Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper co-star.1 moreAll