20 Great Movie Remakes With One Miscast Role

The Coen brothers’ True Grit is a masterful modern Western, following young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) as she hires drunken lawman Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the outlaw who murdered her father. This West feels vast, lawless, and is full of the kind of quirky types the Coens are known for.

The characterisation and presentation of pretty much every character is dead on, down to the rough-n-ready clothes and slurred voices, except for Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. Damon is a good actor, and he does a good job managing all the moods and nuances of the part; the problem is it's not quite the right performance for the film.

His ranger is inconsistent, sometimes coming across as a true Western authority, and sometimes an idiot, moving too far each time the wind changes. True Grit is indeed humorous, but not in the absurd way of the Coens' contemporary-set work; instead, it’s more of a piece with the tone of No Country for Old Men.

LaBoeuf is definitely intended to be a more polished outsider (to the State), but with his pearly whites and clean-cut appearance, he feels a step away from the rest of the cast, who embed themselves deep in the era and the accents. Wiping a streak of mud through that Hollywood shine didn’t dim it enough.