The Movie Filter by Jeff Roedel – Tried and ‘True’

How do you add gravitas to an otherwise ordinary Western revenge tale? Begin the movie with a passage from Proverbs as Joel and Ethan Coen do in their remake of the 1970 John Wayne Oscar-winner. “The wicked flee when none pursueth,” the scripture reads in warning. The trick wouldn’t seem so film school shallow if the Coen’s most recent body of work had not already revealed them to be so aggressively nihilistic, but nevertheless, True Grit, based on the Charles Portis novel, does give us a righteous pursuer in the form of young Mattie Ross, a precocious and thoroughly outspoken 14-year-old out for stone cold revenge against Tom Chaney, the man who betrayed and murdered her father. Read more…