Because of the nostalgia from the idea of the old movie (that I hadn’t seen), I was not excited to see the new version that ruined the memories.  What if I didn’t like the movie or what if they did a bad job?  My better half on the other hand was thrilled to go.

In short, the movie was awesome!  I really liked the characters and the progression.  After seeing True Grit I tried to find a copy of the old version for comparison.  It turns out that a remake of an old movie spawns a lot of people with the same idea.  All of the rental stores had it checked out, netflix didn’t have it on demand, and it wasn’t carried in the box stores.

While I stopped short of handing over $20 to buy it online, I did run into an old 5 minute teaser video on it.  Most of the lines were taken verbatim and it looks like the new version was very true to the older one. 

Of course being made by the Coen brothers, they had a lot of blood splats and went all out developing characters.  The ending of true grit was a big let down.  Showing Mattie as an old woman and having Rooster become a circus performer added nothing to the movie and killed the emotional bond between them and the audience.  Other than the lackluster ending, the show was fantastic.

Damon & Bridges did well playing characters outside of their usual or signature roles.

Damon’s character, the borderline schizophrenic compulsive serial liar Mark Whitacre  runs around giving the FBI all kinds of information about his company’s price fixing schemes.  Also he tells them all kinds of weird things that may or may not be true, which leaves the FBI thugs with mixed feelings.

During the whole movie, Whitacre is narrating the whole thing with his random wandering thoughts. It is a little weird at first as many of them have absolutely nothing to with the plotline or any of the characters in it.

Although without the inner narration the movie would be a lot more serious.  You are never sure what to believe, and you want to think that Whitacre is telling the truth.  Eventually you have to stop believing him completely or risk having him betray the trust that you need as an audience member.

Matt Damon did a very good job with the character and transforming into a part that would normally go to seasoned nervous paranoid schizophrenic acting master Nicolas Cage.  Damon took the roll and made it his own.  While Damon isn’t exactly type-casted as an actor, this role was outside of many of his previous flicks.  And he did a great job at it.

When the ten nominations arrive for best picture, don’t look for this one.  Although if the movie was released later in the year there is a chance that Damon would be able to get a best actor nomination.