Micro Review: True Grit (2010)

As a whole, 2010 was a terrible year for movies save for a select few gems, not the least of which are The Town and Inception. To have a late-year release come and best those two films took me totally by surprise. The fact The Best Movie of 2010 comes from Joel and Ethan Coen does not. We didn't need a remake of John Wayne's classic Western, but the brothers have gone back to the source material, the 1968 novel of the same name, and done a retelling that's all their own. The film is a fine balance between drama and action picture, with a healthy dose of character study and black comedy added to the mix. And don't forget four of the best performances anyone is likely to see in years. Best of all, True Grit is relentlessly entertaining. You don't need to wind your brain up too much to enjoy the hell out of it. It's hard for a movie to get much more Good than this.