True Grit

If you were prompted to think of Rooster Cogburn or "True Grit", you would most likely think either of John Wayne or Jeff Bridges. My experience after this film suggests that this shouldn't change. The memorable Western protagonist is played this time by Warren Oates. He'd only live a few years after making this film, but his filmography is full of well-known titles, like "In the Heat of the Night" and "Badlands". I think he may be one of those actors, like Lee Van Cleef, who is best suited to supporting roles, as he simply can't pull off the character. In the film he looks more like Jeff Bridges than John Wayne, sporting a grey beard with the characteristic eyepatch, although he lacks Cogburn's portly figure ("That's bold talk for a one-eyed fat man" - one of the story's most memorable lines). People who've seen either "True Grit" will know that Cogburn isn't the only significant character, which brings me to Mattie Ross. In this film she is played by Lisa Pelikan. I believe that her performance is somewhat inferior to Kim Darby's (1969), and vastly inferior to Hailee Steinfeld's (2010); however, some of this may be due to the script, which rarely awards any of the actors a decent line. Given his size, temperament and involvement in all the action, Rooster Cogburn, even in this TV film, is always in the viewer's mind. Unfortunately, the combination of lacklustre acting and forgettable lines means that Mattie Ross provokes nothing but apathy (in this she reminded me of Emilia Clarke's Sarah Connor in "Terminator Genisys": more "invisible" than "bad"). The other aspects of the film fail to redeem it. There are one or two fairly fun action scenes, but - even for a TV film - it feels *much* older than it is. If I hadn't known that John Wayne was too ill to take the lead in 1978, I'd have suspected that this was the older version. I've read that it was intended to be launched into a TV series; it's a good thing that it wasn't.

Oh my what have they done? Why would anyone take on the awesome responsibility of filling John Waynes shoes especially when he won an Oscar for the role? Warren Oats takes over as Roster Cogburn in this "further adventures" story. He makes no attempt to look like Wayne except for the eye patch. In this film he is sporting a full beard and an equally full buffalo coat. I am assuming that he wanted to add his own take to the character but it fails something awful. The story line is weak. The supporting cast is weak. But most of all Oats himself is weak. I must say that I loved Oats when he did what he was best known for. A supporting player. He was super in the Wild Bunch or Major Dundee. He was known for playing tough, down on his luck rednecks and hicks. Sherif Cogburn was none of that. Wayne played him as a cunning and grizzled gunslinger slash lawman with vim and vinegar running through his veins. Oats portrayal left me searching my stack of DVD's looking for True Grit to get the bad taste out of my mouth from this film. If you are looking for a good, not great western just to amuse yourself pop in a flick like They Came To Cordoba or Rio Conchos. So do yourself a favor. If you ever see this late at night as you are flipping through the channels quick jump up and pop in a western into your DVD player. Any western. It's worth the trip to the DVD cabinet.

I didn't like it. I quit halfway through this one as I found it boring, with nothing happening. I kept waiting for some sort of story to emerge as there didn't seem to be much of a plot to begin with.

There were other things wrong with this movie. In my opinion, Warren Oates was miscast and his performance didn't do the character of Rooster Cogburn justice. In addition, I found the Mattie Ross in this film to be irritating. In particular, she's supposed to be older than the character that Kim Darby portrayed in the original and, presumably, a bit more mature.

This is one movie should be avoided. There are lots of better westerns that are worth watching. This isn't one of them.

True Grit (A Further Adventure) is directed by Richard T. Heffron and written by Sandor Stern. It stars Warren Oates, Lisa Pelikan, Lee Meriwether, James Stephens, Jeff Osterhage and Lee Montgomery. Music is by Earle Hagen and cinematography by Stevan Larner.

This is a TV movie that follows on from the two Rooster Cogburn movies that featured John Wayne in the iconic title role. Here we have Warren Oates donning the Rooster eye patch, he's on escort duty but as he has Mattie Ross (Pelikan) trying to reform him, he winds up in a town trying to make things right - you know, bad guys to be sorted whilst looking after those he has a soft spot for.

It's actually not a bad piece as such - in that fun episodic Oater kind of way - but that's the problem, it feels like, and should have been a one hour picture. There's simply not enough weight here to carry the pic through an hour and forty minutes. Oates wisely doesn't try to mimic Duke Wayne by putting his own stamp on the character, and turns in a good perf (some serious non wild west white teeth there though!). Unfortunately the supporting cast are desperately poor, and while the playing it for jolly pulse beat entertains to a degree, the lack of serious tension undermines proceedings and renders the whole thing pretty pointless. 5/10