Both my father and my soon-to-be father-in-law are diehard fans of the American Western. As a kid, I was more familiar with the work of Lee Van Cleef (Gunfight At the O.K. Corral; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) than that of Van Cliburn (something to do with a piano), and today I occasionally kick back to watch an old episode of Have Gun Will Travel with my fiancee’s dad.
Other movies come and go—you may recall the mid-’80s ninja craze—but Westerns simply lie low for a bit, gnawing at the end of a cigarillo and waiting for you to let your guard down again.
There’s a lot to be said for the genre—especially in its often less than exact delineation of good and evil. Where many films would prefer to have a pristine hero and an unredeemable villain, in a Western the hero may be just as underhanded or drunk as his counterpart; the difference is more a matter of what motivates him to be that way. Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti Western hero does a heck of a lot more killing than any of the bad guys he plugs, and he often does it between bar and brothel visits, but we cheer him on.
Something similar is going on in Joel and Ethan Coen’s True Grit, opening this week at Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton. A remake of the 1969 John Wayne vehicle, the update stars Jeff Bridges as the boozy, gun-slinging U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a broken-down hero given a chance by 14-year-old Mattie Ross after her father is murdered by Tom Chaney (No Country For Old Men‘s Josh Brolin). Together they set out after him, eventually hooking up with a Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf (Matt Damon) who is on Chaney’s trail for another murder.
Young Hailee Steinfeld, selected after an open casting call led to a flood of video auditions, has been garnering rave reviews for her performance as Mattie. The Coens have anchored their film to her performance, and her ability to connect with her leading men both as character and actress. And though we might be seduced by the familiar rough and tumble of Bridges’ Cogburn, it is Mattie, in the end, to whom the title really refers. Bridges is still the star, but Steinfeld clearly has her eye on the future.
Bridges also shows up this week in TRON: Legacy, a belated sequel to the 1982 sci-fi cult classic TRON—a film in which the actor also starred. Reprising his dual roles as computer pioneer Kevin Flynn and Clu—a kind of personified computer program running inside an alternate reality—Bridges is also resurrected as a version of his younger self with a bit of digital sleight of hand.
Garrett Hedlund stars as Sam Flynn, the boy left orphaned when his father disappeared decades earlier. When a beacon begins signaling from his dad’s abandoned video game arcade, Sam’s investigation lands him in the same digital prison that has kept his father confined for two decades—essentially, an enormous computer system complete with malware and mp3 players in the form of French electro-house DJs Daft Punk. Reunited, the pair fight together to escape from a universe that, though created by Kevin, has developed a mind of its own.
Finally this week, the surprising true story of King George VI comes to the screen with The King’s Speech, a look at a tumultuous time in English history and the private battle one man fought to lead his nation through the turmoil. Crowned as England hurtled toward war with Germany, George (Colin Firth) was a surprise king—he was only crowned when his brother Edward (Guy Pearce) abdicated the throne in order to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. Afflicted with a debilitating stammer, George was nonetheless determined to inspire his people with an historic radio address; to help him overcome his speech impediment, his wife Elizabeth brought in unorthodox therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush)—a man who, perhaps more than he realized, changed the course of history.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
