True Grit: Review

         Well, recently there was a period of time (like, almost two weeks) where we spent almost all of our waking time at a friends house, waiting for a miniature horse to be born. That takes a LOT of patience....... which I don't have a lot of. :)
Anyway, we've done  LOT of Worldview, and had the chance to see a few movies as well. One of which is the famed John Wayne version of "True Grit".

        Here is my review.
        Lets start from the top. The story line is about a girl who goes in search of the murderer of her father, who has escaped into the Indian territory, and only a U.S. Marshal can go there to hunt him down legally. So, she picked up the meanest and toughest of the bunch, Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne). They and a Texas Ranger by the name of La-beaf (I can't remember his first name, but he's played by Glen Campbell) all head off into the Indian territory to search for the murderer, who has taken up with a notorious robber band, the main bad-guy played by Robert Duvall. So, after some action here and there, through some odd twists, the murderer is shot, La-beaf dies a hero, and Rooster is left to carry the girl to safety and a hospital before she dies of a deadly snakebite.
        So, in the end, Wayne is the Hero, with the girl, played by Kim Darby, showed to be pretty tough as well.
        All right, enough spoilers, on to worldview.
        The worldview in this movie STANK. The "Hero", Rooster, is a drunk for half of the movie. He sorta is cleared of the sin in the girls eyes by going up against four men at the same time and winning, showing his "grit", but he still is an awful hero in the Christian eyes. He is uncouth, swears, is disrespectful to the girl, but he does start to nicen up halfway through the movie. He is a U.S. Marshal, but when telling his history to the girl while waiting in ambush, he tells about how he robbed a bank when he was young to get him going in life, he talks about the woman he divorced and how horrible she was and how the boy they had hated him.......
and the list goes on. The "hero" in this movie is a utter failure at "hero-ness".
          The Ranger, La-beaf, is stuck up, a bit on the "know-it-all" end, doesn't think much of Rooster and is disrespectful, but does die a hero in the end for shooting the main bad guy off his horse from way up on a butte, and helps haul Wayne and the girl out of a hole while being half dead from a blow to the head, and then dies gloriously by falling off the horse just as the girl and Wayne are safe.
          And if that wasn't bad enough....
          The main character, "Maddie" is a feminist farmgirl. She is a girl who knows her way around in the world, knows when she's right, and will not back down till she gets her way. One of the ways this is played out the worst is by insisting that she go along with the two men to hunt down the murderer, refusing to listen to them telling her she can't, and going along anyway (a serious crossing of the line of male headship and woman submission, as well as her even going on such a dangerous mission).
        The creators of the movie were very clever in hiding the feminism, by everyone in the movie looking down on the girl, belittlinging her, and always telling her to run along back to the farm to help mamma with the milking. They used this to elevate the woman in your mind, out of the unjust treatment, over all these mean people treating her like trash. The way the treated her was not right, but it is used in a knee-jerk reaction to put the woman a notch higher than she should be in the intellectual hierarchy-- a very clever stratagem by the creators. Also, all the main men in the story are shown to be less determined and less honorable than she is, backing out of agreements, being outright rude and manipulative, and the list goes on, lowering men and elevating the smart farm girl.
        Ok, enough bashing. My few praises of the movie.
        The score is excellent, the scenery they filmed on is GORGEOUS, and the part where Wayne takes on four opponents on horseback, swinging his rifle to chamber rounds with his right hand, firing his pistol with his left, and holding the reigns is his teeth, was kinda cool (that deep down cowboy in me really liked that part :) )      
        There was also a little clean humor in a courthouse scene, the funniest part in the whole movie, I think.
        All in all, not a family friendly movie, considering the cussing, and the horrible characters and worldview.