Directed by: Joel and Ethan Cohen
The way I understand it, the directors of this are famous American writer-auteurs, and they loved the original classic with John Wayne so much they just had to remake it. They use modern-day cameras and color-grading and editing, so it feels like they told the same story with a shiny coat of paint, the way someone remakes "The Three Musketeers" every fifteen years or so. It was quite good.Holy smokes! This got nominated for TEN (10!) Oscars! It didn't win any of them, which is why you haven't heard of it as much, but that's high praise for the product! Most of it is technical stuff like sound mixing and art direction, but it also got nominated for Best Director, Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actress. This ain't no spring chicken. Wow. Like I said, shiny new coat of paint.
So, the premise of this is that a 14-year old girl whose papa got killed by an impulsive employee hires a US Marshal to track him down and the two of them go into wilderness to try and get him. She's very precocious - a great bargainer, leveraging people around her into following when they wouldn't have otherwise. The rest of the movie is showing a picture of the Old West, and the question over justice versus revenge that's driving her actions.
If the original is written like this is, then it's one of those classics I mentioned that's remembered 'cause the screenplay's so darn good. It's quite sad to see her going after him, 'cause it's clear she won't get justice unless she gets him, and we see she has a grieving, inconsolate mother and two baby siblings to take care of. If they can get the guy who did it, that's gonna go a long way towards helping them heal. And we see people don't take her AS seriously 'cause she's a cute, young-looking girl, and women didn't have as much perceived independence in that time. She has to fight with every bit of verbage to convince people to follow her. But she does. So it's cool
An hour and fifty; PG-13; pretty good. Recommend
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