Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Hailee Steinfeld

Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images.

Rico: We have three factors in play here. The novel by Charles Portis, the John Wayne film for which he won his only Oscar, and the new film featuring Jeff Bridges.

I thought Bridges handled the role quite well. The 2010 version of the film is definitely the young girl’s (played by Hailee Steinfeld) version of the events that take place.

Joyce: Bridges, as Rooster Cogburn, is fine as the rugged, drunken, brave old guy. The outlaw turned U.S. Marshal is often funny, but he also talks with a mumbling western drawl that is hard to understand sometimes. Too bad, because the lines are good.

Rico: The Coen brothers’s take on this version is, of course, their own. They replaced Wayne with Bridges, Kim Darby with Hailee Steinfeld, Glen Campbell with Matt Damon and Jeff Corey with Josh Brolin. Excellent casting and performing all around! The violence is as graphic as could be expected by a Coen brothers film.

It’s good entertainment ***1/2

Joyce: Steinfeld is a most welcome new actor. This is her first film and, boy, is she good as the 14-year-old who hires Cogburn to help her to avenge her father’s killing. It’s a gritty tale, with a number of dead bodies, as one might expect in the old West. I loved it, even though I missed quite a bit of the dialogue.

***1/2