When Joel and Ethan Coen (“No County For Old Men’) decided to remake this iconic Western, they turned to the source: Charles Portis’s 1968 novel. Yet comparing Jeff Bridges’ irascible Rooster Cogburn with John Wayne’s is inevitable, since Wayne placed an indelible imprint on the role, winning his only Oscar in 1969 and reprising it in the 1975 sequel. That’s perhaps why the Coens focus on the character of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a fearlessly determined 14 year-old Arkansas girl who hires Federal Marshall Cogburn to track down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the hired hand who killed her father.
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