Lee Ritchie’s review published on Letterboxd:
Seldom does a remake ever surpass the original, especially in the case of an kind-of-classic film like 1969's True Grit. The Coen's 2010 remake of True Grit is a hell of a lot better though.
Jeff Bridges is an actor that a good amount of the time usually just plays himself, and after his performance here he seems to be doing the snarly, grumbly cowboy personality quite a bit more (such as in R.I.P.D.). The difference between him doing it now and then for the first time is that when he created the persona here he really let himself get enveloped in the role. It's one of my favourite Bridges performances, he really is on edge the entire movie and it leads for a lot of unexpected turns in his development. He makes a lot of decisions that contradict his personality, but those constant changes really are what make the character so brilliant to watch.
Hailee Steinfeld portrays a strong female lead (not a supporting character silly Academy Awards) as the fourteen year old Mattie Ross, out for vengeance against the man who killed her father. It's a unique character and could have been handled so wrongly in different hands, just because of how serious and determined she is to murder a man. The character could have taken itself way too seriously, but the Coen's filter in some of their nice brand of goofy humour to make it work.
Something I never expected back when I had first watched this was just how funny it would be. Previously I had seen No Country For Old Men from the director due and while it had its fair share of dark humour to break up the tension I never found it to be a funny movie. True Grit on the other hand is hilarious at times, it's a lot more talky than you would expect but the dialogue is so entertaining to listen to especially due to how wonderful the cast is.
Supporting alongside leads Bridges and Steinfeld are Matt Damon and Josh Brolin; who each give pretty solid performances but the real stars are our leads. The Coens thrive on making supporting characters equally as interesting as the leads, and there are a bunch of side characters here that will be brilliantly entertaining - my favouring being the guy with the bear on his head.
Being a remake of a 1969 western they generally follow the same plot, and once again the story is pretty basic. There's no problem with that though because the movie shines through with its excellent cast of characters and witty dialogue. True Grit is one of the best modern traditional westerns I've seen and one of the few remakes that greatly surpasses the original.