Film / True Grit

Rooster: I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged at Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?
Ned: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!
Rooster: Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!

True Grit is a 1968 Western novel by Charles Portis. Its main plot revolves around 14-year-old planter's daughter Mattie Ross, who seeks revenge for her father's murder with the aid of aging U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn — a notoriously "double-tough, knowing no fear", one-eyed, drunken badass — and younger Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. The plot involves some chasing, some tracking, some humor, a lot of shooting, the rescue of Mattie from a rattlesnake pit, a one-to-four final showdown of Rooster against bandits, and the final scene of Rooster riding away, proud and alone (sadly, there's no sunset).

The novel has been adapted to film twice. The first version, released in 1969, was directed by Henry Hathaway and stars John Wayne as Rooster (in a performance that earned him both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor), with Glen Campbell as LaBoeuf and Kim Darby as Mattie. The film was followed by two sequels: 1975's Rooster Cogburn (original release title Rooster Cogburn (... and the Lady), starring John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn), and 1978's True Grit: A Further Adventure (made for TV, starring Warren Oates).

A second adaptation, released in 2010, was directed by The Coen Brothers. Staying closer to the source material, it places a greater emphasis on Mattie, played impressively by 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld. Jeff Bridges as Rooster and Matt Damon as LaBoeuf costar, with Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney. The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, but won none.

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Both films and the book provide examples of:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: The two actresses who portray Mattie Ross in both the 1969 and 2010 versions (Kim Darby and Hailee Steinfeld) are somewhat prettier than described in the book.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the novel, Rooster, while drunk, uses Mattie's revolver to shoot at a rat. Mattie demands he reload the two fired chambers, which he does using defective caps, and still drunk. This is what causes it to misfire twice later on. The 1969 film has Rooster use his own revolver and the 2010 film doesn't include the scene at all, leaving the misfires unexplained. However, the 2010 film does have Mattie and the revolver fall back into the river due to the recoil of her first shot, foreshadowing her fall into the snake pit. Wetting the powder in a cap & ball revolver like Mattie's can cause it to misfire, but the script never directly says this.
• Affably Evil: Ned Pepper. When Mattie is captured, he specifically forbids anyone from harming her and tells her that they will leave her unharmed in a civilized place. However, he still puts her at the mercy of a man with every reason to kill her.
• Age Lift:
  • In the 1969 adaptation, John Wayne was 61 at the time, while the book describes Rooster as being in his early forties. Jeff Corey (playing Chaney) was in his 50s, while Chaney is in his mid twenties in the novel.
  • In the 2010 version, most of the male lead actors are older than their respective characters were in the book. Jeff Bridges was 60 when the film was made. Matt Damon (39) plays LaBoeuf, who is about 30 in the book, and Josh Brolin (42) plays Chaney. Barry Pepper is about the same age as Ned Pepper is in the book, though. It helps that Damon and Brolin are Older Than They Look.
• Ancestral Weapon: Mattie's father's revolver, which she tries to kill the murderer with, and eventually (in the first movie) gives to Rooster and (in the second movie) shoots Chaney with when she first meets him during the chase..
• An Arm and a Leg: In the book and 2010 film, Mattie has her arm amputated in the end, due to a rattlesnake bite.
• Anti-Hero: Rooster is a rude, crude, sloven drunkard who only agrees to Mattie's offer out of sheer annoyance, and spends some of the trip to find Mattie's target roaring drunk. And just before the climax, tells Mattie that the entire trip was an irritating waste of his time, which demoralizes LaBoeuf enough to leave the group in the morning, and seemingly abandons her to her father's killer when she's caught. This is, of course, just a ploy to follow the group back to their camp. He also stops LaBoeuf from whipping Mattie.
• Asian Store-Owner: The Chinese man who runs the store where Cogburn likes to doze off.
• Automaton Horses: Averted. The trio spends much time caring for their horses, and when Rooster is riding Blackie hard and long to save Mattie, he ends up collapsing, and it's pretty obvious he's done for, even before Rooster puts him out of his misery.

• Battle Cry: Rooster announces his charge at Ned by bellowing, "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!"
• Bested by the Inexperienced: Young girl Mattie kills Chaney, an experienced outlaw.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • LaBoeuf rescues Mattie when Chaney tries to "silence" her.
  • Rooster appears to have abandoned Mattie out of convenience when she's captured, but LaBoeuf (who heard Mattie's shot) tells her he's coming back due to a bounty for Ned Pepper's gang.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In both versions, Chaney; Pepper and the posse are all successfully killed. With the 1969 version though, Mattie nearly dies of a snake bite; her horse dies of exhaustion and LaBoeuf is killed from a head injury. Mostly downplayed though.
  • In the 2010 one while LaBoeuf survives, Mattie loses her arm due to the snake bite; Cogburn's forced to shoot her horse when the legs break and about 25 years later—having lived a quiet and isolated life as a "bitter" unmarried woman, when Mattie goes to see Cogburn at a traveling show he's been performing in, arrives and is informed that he died before she could get there. While the prior version has Mattie state her intention to have Cogburn buried in her family plot someday as a show of gratitude, this version indeed does have her follow through with it.
• Bookworm: Mattie is very well-read and eloquent for her age.
• Brainy Brunette: Mattie, who haggles like nobody else's business.
• Bridal Carry: After Mattie's been bitten by a snake, and Rooster rides her horse to death to get her to a doctor, he carries her in this fashion nearly the rest of the way. In the 1969 version, it doesn't take him long to find a wagon to "borrow" to get her the rest of the way. In the 2010 movie, however, he has to run long and far before finding a doctor. By the time he collapses on his knees near the house, still clutching her in his arms, he's nearly out of breath and passed out himself.
• Bounty Hunter: Rooster, despite being a Deputy U.S. Marshal whose job it is to track down fugitives, takes money to help him decide which fugitives to track.
• Butt-Monkey: LaBoeuf is shot, tied up, beaten, trampled, bites through his tongue, and mocked repeatedly throughout the film.
  • The Coen Brothers appear to have kept the character alive in their adaptation, not for a happier ending, but to make one last joke at his expense.
• Chekhov's Gun: Lots of these.
  • A literal examples in Mattie's father's gun which she carries around with her for 3/4ths of the movie, and eventually shoots.
  • Mattie's lawyer J. Noble Daggett, whose name she, as LaBoeuf said in the original, draws like a gun. He is a voice-over in the 2010 film, but he shows up in the end of the 1969 film.
  • When Rooster explains (i.e. taunts) the consequences (mortification (i.e. gangrene)) of not treating a deep wound to a prisoner that has been shot. Later in the 2010 film, Mattie loses an arm to the effects of snake venom.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The outlaw henchman who could only make chicken noises in both films.
• Damsel in Distress: Mattie. Oh, is there a classical western without one? Though she's less so in the original book and especially the 2010 film.
• Determinator:
  • Part of what makes Mattie so awesome, even more so in in the 2010 film. Young girl, on her own, who will not take "no" for an answer, crosses two states and travels the wilderness to find the man that killed her father and bring him in for justice.
  • Rooster too, especially when he runs his horse to death, and nearly himself as well, all to save Mattie.
  • LaBoeuf has his moment, too. It can't be easy to stay on the trail with a bullet through your shoulder and a half-severed tongue. He eventually leaves when Rooster yells at the two of them after being way too damn drunk.
• Dirty Coward: Tom Chaney, who attacks only when the opportunity shows itself. The Epigraph of the 2010 film drives this home, with Proverbs 28:1 : "The wicked flee when none pursueth."
• Don't Tell Mama: Referenced when a dying man asks Rooster to get word to his brother, a preacher. Rooster asks "Should I tell him you were outlawed up?" However, the man replies that it doesn't matter.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: Mattie sure does. She wears down Col. Stonehill into recompensing her for the two horses that Tom Chaney stole after murdering her father. One of them did not even belong to the Rosses, but Frank Ross had paid for the use of him. She also sells back some Mustang ponies her father bought, despite Stonehill's insistence that he doesn't want them.
  Mattie: You have not traded poorly.
  Stonehill: Oh, certainly not. I am paying you for a horse I do not possess and have bought back a string of useless ponies which I cannot sell again.
  • When she later goes to buy another horse from him he's downright terrified of her and flat-out offers her ten dollars to never come back.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The book and 2010 film both Deconstruct the classic Western, populating it with drunks, puffed-up know-nothings, and amoral bandits rather than romantic heroes. But when it comes down to it, Rooster, LaBoeuf, and especially Mattie demonstrate real heroism and courage, and they succeed in bringing down their man, although the end result is still more bittersweet than happy.
• Eyepatch of Power: Rooster. After this role brought Wayne the Academy Award for Best Actor, he said: "If I'd known this, I'd have put that eyepatch on 40 years ago." Cogburn does not wear an eyepatch in the novel, however. In the 2010 version, he wears the eyepatch over his right eye, being slightly more accurate to the novel's version of Rooster; Wayne's portrayal has him wearing it over the left eye.
• Family Theme Naming: The Parmalee brothers (Harold, Farrell, Carroll and Darryl) all have named with an l sound in or near their endings. However, it's averted with Canon Foreigner Clement Parmalee in the second movie.
• The Film of the Book: Based on a novel by Charles Portis.
• Formally-Named Pet: The cat's name is General Sterling Price, after The American Civil War general of the same name.
• Friendly Sniper: Labouef fills this role in the climax in all three versions.
• The Ghost: In all three versions, Harold and Farrell’s mother and brothers and Rooster’s fellow marshals William Waters and L.T. Quinn don't appear but are mentioned with varying degrees of detail.
• Good is Not Nice: Rooster will catch Chaney, no problem. This doesn't mean he won't be a huge jerk along the way and bitch about it the entire time. Lampshaded when Mattie specifically seeks him out for being the "meanest" Marshal available.
• The Gunslinger: All the main cast, that's a western!
• Hanging Around: Par for the genre, three men are publicly executed in this way.
• Hanging Judge: Judge Parker, a real historical person and one of the Trope Namers.
• Hero of Another Story: Labouef has been pursuing Chaney for years without success, although given Chaney’s Butt-Monkey status this doesn’t exactly impress Mattie. Rooster's fellow (unseen) Marshals William Waters, Columbus Potter, and L.T. Quinn may also count.
• Historical Domain Character: The novel and the 2010 film end at a Wild West Show run by former infamous criminals Cole Younger and Frank James (brother of Jesse), who would have been out of prison by this time. Older Mattie is quite respectful to Mr. Younger, but has a few choice words to say to Mr. James. Whether this is because of James' lack of courtesy to her — he does not stand up when she approaches him — or because he never served a sentence for his crimes (unlike Younger) is unclear.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Ned Pepper may be the gang's boss, but it's Tom Chaney that everybody's after.
• Jerkass: LaBoeuf, who openly brags about being a Texas ranger and gets constantly angry at Mattie for getting insulted over it (later beating her), though he gets better.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Where is Chaney to be convicted and hanged, and for what? In Arkansas, for the murder of Mattie's father? Or in Texas, for the murder of a state Senator (and his dog)? Made irrelevant by Chaney dying in the final battle.
• Little Miss Snarker: Mattie in all three.
• Miles Gloriosus: Averted. LaBoeuf looks like he's going to be one. But he turns out to be tough, tenacious, honorable and a crack shot. Still a pompous windbag though.
• Outlaw: Chaney and Pepper's gang.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Ned Pepper. Despite all the indications he would be the Big Bad, it's his idiot henchman who murdered Mattie's father and started the plot. He even admonishes Chaney for dragging him into the whole mess.
• Plucky Girl: Mattie in all three.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Say it with me: Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: LaBoeuf seems to consider himself this. None of the non-Texans are impressed.
• Rancher: Mattie's family.
• Reliably Unreliable Guns: Mattie's Colt Dragoon (cartridge-converted Colt Walker in the 1969 film) misfires twice when she shoots Chaney. The book explains that Rooster, while drunk, used it to shoot a rat, and Mattie insisted he reload the two fired cylinders, which he did using defective old caps from a box under his bed, and still drunk. However, John Wayne used his Colt Peacemaker and Jeff Bridges doesn't shoot any rats, making the misfires a mystery and giving an unfair impression that Dragoons were unreliable.
  • The recoil from the first shot knocked her back into the river right before the misfire. It's never explicitly stated, but getting a revolver wet like that would likely render the bullets temporarily unusable.
• Retired Outlaw: Prior to becoming a Marshal, Rooster's activities included robbing high-interest banks and being a member of Quantrill's Raiders. However, he does insist quite strongly that he was not a murderer, and only ever stole from banks, not individual people.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One of Lucky Ned’s men turns his horse away from Rooster halfway through the climactic shootout and gallops out of the meadow.
• Shoot the Dog: Rooster puts Little Blackie out of his misery after he's near dead from exhaustion.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Done with a nod to realism - Mattie, due to her age and stature, has trouble firing a gun half her size.
• Spared By Adaptation: In the novel, Odus Wharton (the prisoner Rooster is testifying against during his Establishing Character Moment) later escapes from jail, confronts Rooster and is killed by him, something which isn't included in either film. The 2010 version also mentions The Parmalee's younger brother Carroll (whose -admittedly minor- role was Adapted Out of the first film) but leaves out Mattie mentioning that he was executed for an unspecified crime in the early twentieth century.
• Spock Speak: Everyone in the novel and both films sounds very odd because they do not use contractions, true to the time period.
• Title Drop: Mattie has heard that Rooster is "a man with true grit."
• Undertaker: He allows Mattie to sleep amongst the coffins for one night, although he's pretty surprised by her request.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Lucky Ned shows little concern or sadness for the death of Billy, who rode back to save him after he lost his horse in the novel and 1969 film, saying he's happy Billy did it but that he should have looked out for himself. This is averted in the 2010 film where Billy is Adapted Out and it was Coke Haze (who he asks Mattie what happened to in all three version) who picked him up and then was shot off the horse.
• U.S. Marshal: Rooster is one.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Very much the tone of the ending in the original novel and the 2010 version.
• Villain of Another Story: Ned Pepper is this in all versions. Infamous outlaw? Check. Leader of a gang? Check. History with Rooster Cogburn? Check. Is he the villain of the movie? Nope, it's his henchman Tom Chaney who got drunk and killed Mattie's father. He's actually pissed at Tom for dragging him into the events of True Grit to begin with.
• The Western
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the novel and 2010 film, the last we see or hear from LaBoeuf is when Rooster leaves the scene of the final battle with Mattie to seek medical attention. Rooster is forced to leave him behind because there's only one horse left. He promises to send someone to get him, and LaBoeuf insists he'll be fine. He's never seen again in the 2010 film. In the novel, Mattie says that for years she tried and failed to find out what happened to him. The 1969 film solves this problem by killing him via a fall from a horse shortly after the final battle ends.
• The Wild West
• You Killed My Father: Mattie. She actually faces her father's murderer and even shoots him, but the gun misfires. In the 2010 film she shoots him the first time with the same result, then finishes the job later on.

Tropes specific to the original novel:

• As the Good Book Says...: Mattie regularly quotes from the Bible during her narration, referring to specific passages.
• Badass Preacher: Unseen Hero of Another Story L.T. Quinn is both a lay preacher and a U.S. marshal. He believes Thou Shall Not Kill and brings his prisoners back alive while managing to avoid being killed by anyone who tries to take advantage of his unwillingness to kill them. The occasional fugitive escapes him by running, but there's no indication that he's ever lost a fight.

• Bittersweet Ending: Mattie seems generally more upbeat than she does at the end of the 2010 film (she says she's content with the life she's led rather than acting regretful), but the feeling is still somewhat melancholy, especially when it comes to her relationship with Cogburn.
• Cats Are Mean: Adult Mattie is thoroughly convinced that this is the case, and even cites Luke 8:26-33 as scriptural "proof" for it.
• Eyepatch of Power: Averted. While Cogburn has only one eye, he doesn't wear an eyepatch. This was changed for both films to accommodate actors who obviously still had two eyes.
• Narration Echo: At one point, the narration says:
  It was a cashier's check for $2,750 drawn on the Grangers Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas, to a man named Marshall Purvis. I said, "This is a cashier's check for $2,750 drawn on the Grangers Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas, to a man named Marshall Purvis."
• Shout-Out: In addition to the explicit quoting of Bible passages, there are a number of more subtle allusions to scripture in the story. One of the more prominent examples involves two criminals who, prior to their deaths, strongly resemble the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus. One is unrepentant, the other accepts redemption and is promised a place in Paradise.
• Sweet Tooth: Rooster enjoys eating honey cakes with jam.

Tropes specific to the 1969 film

• Adjective Animal Alehouse: While talking with Mattie Ross about his past life, Rooster Cogburn mentions that he once bought an "eating place" (restaurant) called the Green Frog.
• Bittersweet Ending: The happiest ending of the three versions for sure, but LaBoeuf's death kind of dampens things.
• Boyish Short Hair: Mattie, to suit her feistiness.
• Death by Adaptation: LaBoeuf.
• Death by Irony: After Mattie is knocked into the snakepit, Chaney makes a crack about how there'll be a corpse in that pit soon enough. He's then shot and falls, dead, into the pit himself. Mattie is rescued, but Chaney's corpse is just left there to rot.
• The Gunfighter Wannabe: Mattie's pretty serious about the revenge and makes Rooster and LaBoeuf take her with them. Even though she shows enough guts to impress them into taking her along, when things get serious, she's the Damsel in Distress. In the book and remake, Mattie is pretty skilled at fighting though, and again, 1969 Mattie can still be pretty badass in other areas.
• Killed Off for Real: LaBoeuf himself at the end.
• Not With the Safety On, You Won't: Single action revolvers like the Dragoon don't have safeties, but Chaney takes the time to stupidly point out how Mattie can cock the gun, then that she needs to cock it further since such revolvers also have a half-cock they can stop at.
• Obviously Fake Signature: Ned Pepper makes Mattie forge a signature on a check. She does it, thinking as she does it that nobody will think it's the real signature: you can tell it was signed with a stick rather than a proper writing utensil, whereas the real person wouldn't have done that.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: LaBoeuf shoots a turkey and proudly brings it to the party who complain that it's all ripped up. Too much gun, Rooster says. Ah, what can he know, he's not from Texas!
• Token Minority: Mexican Bob of Ned Pepper's gang.
• Vocal Dissonance: One of Ned Pepper's gang is heard first without a close-up on his face. His few lines are said in a deep, gruff voice. After he's killed, it's revealed he's a fresh-faced blonde teenager that probably isn't even eighteen yet.

Tropes specific to the 2010 film

• Bittersweet Ending: Heavy on the bitter. Mattie has to have her arm amputated due to a snakebite. She never sees Cogburn or LaBoeuf again. She did get an invitation from Cogburn years later to see him again, but she arrives a few days after he had already died. She also has to wonder for the rest of her life what happened to LaBoeuf, since he stayed behind when Cogburn had to take Mattie to get medical help for the snakebite. And on top of that, due to not being involved in very ladylike affairs, Mattie never gets married and the movie ends with her as a somewhat lonely middle-aged woman. Despite all of this, they ultimately did achieve their goal of bringing Mattie's father's killer to justice.
• Bookends: The movie begins with young Mattie arriving into town by train, and ends with older Mattie doing the same thing.
• Boom, Headshot!: Rooster responds to Quincey fatally stabbing his accomplice, Moon, by immediately pulling out his revolver and shooting Quincey point-blank in the face. No Gory Discretion Shot, either; the shooting happens in full view of the camera.
• Bloodless Carnage: Strongly averted. When people get shot, they bleed. (And it still got away with a PG-13 rating!^note  Though it did get a 15 Certificate in the UK)
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his many quirks and jerkassitude, Cogburn does have the true grit.
• The Cameo: J. K. Simmons' recognizable voice "appears" very briefly as Mattie's lawyer answering her letter.
• Captain Obvious: Rooster dispenses lines in this vein as though they were pearls of wisdom.
  • Among the most memorable:
    Rooster: "The situation did not develop as intended."
  • There's also:
    Rooster: "Well. That did not pan out."
  • Perhaps the greatest example:
    Rooster: "...You are not LaBoeuf."
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Rooster and Mattie take care to lay down a rope to ward off snakes wherever they bed down for the evening. As it is winter, Ranger LaBoeuf says it is unnecessary. However, during the climactic scene, Mattie stirs up some dormant snakes that awaken and strike. She is saved by a rope, which Rooster uses to reach her.
  • The snakes are sleeping in a pit that LaBoeuf had only moments earlier pointed out to Mattie in a throwaway line talking about something else.
• Darker and Edgier: All three versions of the story have Mattie obsessed to high heaven with getting Chaney, but this version makes her look crazier — especially once we find out that the fact Vengeance Feels Empty is one of the reasons she allowed herself to become a bitter old woman. There are also a few bloodier scenes and the Deliberate Values Dissonance mentioned below.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: While the original book also deconstructed the old west, the 2010 version digs deeper into these characters. Maddie grows up so bitter and cold due to only living by something as dehumanizing as vengeance, while we see Rooster as more self-abusive and hate-filled (which may explain his alcoholism). His "true grit" and noble sides are still there but his addictions do make him much less of a romanticized western hero than how he was portrayed in the original film.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Played to a cringe-inducing and/or hilarious degree in a minor scene early on: when two white men and a Native American are being hanged, both white men are allowed a Final Speech but the second the native opens his mouth he gets the hood shoved over his head and the platform is immediately released when he starts singing his death song.
  • Rooster waxing nostalgic about the American buffalo — which he helped hunt into near extinction.
    Rooster: Damn shame. I would give three dollars right now for a pickled buffalo tongue.
  • The uncomfortable pseudo-romantic moments between LaBoeuf and Mattie.
  • Played with when Rooster frees and chases off a mule that two Native American children were goading outside a trading post, then proceeds to repeatedly and literally kick them off of the porch to the ground. This has presumably more to do with their treatment of the mule than with their ethnic background, however.
• Demoted to Extra: The Parmalee Brothers and Doc/Mexican Bob, only one of whom is even listed in the credits.
• Determinator: Mattie is almost inhumanly obsessed with avenging her father.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: Mattie does. She has to visibly force herself not to haggle with Rooster since she needs his good will.
  "Are we trading again?"
• Even Evil Has Standards: Implied with Lucky Ned in the 2010 version, that standard being oath-keeping. For instance, one of his first lines is informing Rooster that his threat to kill Mattie is not an empty one. Later on, he is adamant that Mattie be left unharmed after closing his deal for her release with Rooster.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: As revealed in the epilogue, after the end of their quest, Mattie never met Cogburn or LaBoeuf again.
• Fingore: In the movie's most infamous case of Family-Unfriendly Violence, Moon has his fingers chopped off in one fell swoop by Quincey shortly before Quincey takes a bullet to the face.
• Foregone Conclusion: When the adult Mattie begins narrating the death of her father, you know that she will survive the events of the movie albeit without an arm and middle-aged.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Mentioning that snakes are usually asleep at this time of year, and taking precautions anyway.
  • J. K. Simmons as Mattie's lawyer predicts that her headstrong ways will get her into a "tight corner."
• Gallows Humor: Literally! The most cringe-worthy, and yet still funny, is that both of the white hangers-to-be are given time to say their last words, but the Native American one has his bag forced over his head just as he begins to give his, cutting him off.
• Girlish Pigtails: Mattie's hairstyle tells everybody she's just a young girl.
• Grammar Correction Gag: Mattie continually points out Rooster's misspellings - even a quarter-century later!
• Guile Hero: Mattie wins battles through her intelligence, will, and force of personality alone - Rooster turns her down twice before she gets a grudging agreement to do the task, and she has to catch up to him the third time.
• Handy Cuffs: Two outlaws having their hands restrained in this way allowed one to kill the other with a knife before he could talk.
• The Hero Dies: Rooster himself at the end.
• Hitler Cam: Tom Chaney when he starts formulating an intent to kill Mattie.
• Human Resources: The dead body Rooster and Mattie find hung thirty feet up from a tree over the trail. After Mattie cuts it down, a passing Indian asks to take it with him - as Rooster puts it, "a dead body's gonna be worth something to someone." Later on they find out it ended up with the Bear Man, who pulled out all its teeth but offered to trade the rest of it to them.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Zigzagged in one scene where LaBoeuf and a drunken Rooster try to show off their marksmanship, and both hit and miss some very difficult moving targets (and Rooster once missed a not very small, non-moving target). The scene with Rooster shooting at, and missing, the whiskey bottle proves to be a deconstruction of the Eyepatch of Power. Though the eyepatch looks cool and Rooster is plenty Badass, it does provide a handicap, especially when combined with his alcoholism. Just before he shoots the bottle, he has to tilt his head much more in order for his good eye, on the left side, to line up properly with the gun in his right hand.
• Insistent Terminology: A brief example, but Forrester the Bear Man makes a couple of specific references to "the original Greaser Bob." Apparently, there were multiple Greaser Bobs in the Choctaw Nation...
• In Vino Veritas: Sort of. Rooster finally screams at LaBoeuf and Mattie that their trail has gone cold, that he's out of his league, that he has no clue why he agreed to this job, and that all of them are gullible idiots, prompting LaBoeuf to leave again and Mattie to get shaken a little. We say "sort of" because she runs into Cheney the very next morning.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: All THREE of the main characters qualify.
• Law of Inverse Recoil: Both times Mattie fires guns, they give one hell of a recoil. Possibly justified, given her small stature and lack of experience with firearms.
  • The Sharps carbine in particular has a beastly amount of recoil; a grown man holding it incorrectly could easily be knocked off balance.
• Makes Us Even: Mattie spends 25 years trying to get Cogburn his last $50. She then finds that he died three days ago, and that the money is of no use to him, hence why she moves him to her family plot. Though some might say it went beyond just the debt.
• May–December Romance: The epilogue implies that Mattie's attachment to Cogburn had something to do with her never marrying, in a completely non-physical sense. Or at least, it implies that other people imply that.
• Mercy Kill: Rooster does this to Little Blackie in order to not make him suffer since he's almost dead from exhaustion.
• Never My Fault: Rooster tossing an empty bottle into the air to shoot at, and missing. Three times.
  Rooster: That Chinaman is running them cheap shells on me again.
  LaBoeuf: I thought you gonna say the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Mattie tried to talk to Rooster while he was in the outhouse.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Though not nearly as cunning as LaBoeuf insists he is, Tom Chaney is much more ruthless and cruel than his Good Ol' Boy dialect and attitude would imply.
• One Riot, One Ranger: LaBoeuf. Less literally, Cogburn also fits this trope, since Marshals often work alone and he's taken on whole gangs by himself.
• Only a Flesh Wound: LaBoeuf is shot straight through the shoulder but shrugs it off. Rooster gets shot by one of Ned Pepper's men in the finale but isn't hindered. Mattie shoots Chaney, but he stays on his feet and attacks her (twice).
• Only in It for the Money: Cogburn appears to be this when he negotiates a $100 bounty for tracking down Chaney. By the end there's probably more to it, especially when he never collects the remaining $50.
• Public Execution: Three men are publicly hanged early on in the film.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Especially rattle-snakes.
• Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The original book was meant to be a more enlightened take on the romanticized west, the John Wayne film completely reversed that and made it a typical western of the time, and the Coen Brothers film brings it back to the enlightenment side.
• Rule of Perception: Two extremely rare aversions. First, the sound of Rooster's gunshot is delayed by several seconds. Second, there is a noticeable delay between the report of LaBoeuf's carbine and the impact of the bullet. Most people are used to instant sound effects and hitscan weapons, so this may be a case of Reality Is Unrealistic.
• Rule of Symbolism: The fatal bullet for Tom Cheney also propels his shooter into a snake pit.
• Scenery Porn: Unsurprisingly a major focus, given that it was done by the Coen Brothers. Credit also due to their frequent collaborator, DP Roger Deakins, who may be the best in the industry in that position.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Pepper Gang's doctor banks a hard left and rides right out of the film when Rooster starts opening fire on the gang.
• Shout-Out: A rather subtle one: The shot of Old Mattie standing in front of Rooster's grave at sunset is an exact recreation of the opening and closing shots of Unforgiven.
• Suck Out the Poison: Done realistically. There is no perceptible benefit afterwards, and in all likelihood this probably lead to an infection which is why Mattie had to have her arm amputated.
• Taking You with Me: Ned Pepper tries to do this with Rooster after the shoot-out in the glen. As Pepper himself says, he is shot to pieces, he's miles from civilization, and his gang's doctor has fled, so he knows he's not walking away from the fight, but he can at least kill Rooster who is trapped under the corpse of his horse. Ultimately averted when LaBoeuf snipes Pepper from a cliff at least 400 meters away, saving Rooster's life.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Rooster and LaBoeuf... LaBoeuf and Mattie... Mattie and Cogburn. Let's just say none of them are thrilled to be teaming together.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Even by Old West standards, a 14-year-old girl that hellbent on vengeance gives everybody pause.
• Truer to the Text: The Coen brothers have said that this was their intention.
• Twilight of the Old West: Railroads are already established transportation at the start of the film; by the end of it, Rooster Cogburn is living a parody of his old life in a Wild West Show, and the West is done.
• Was It Really Worth It?: The film ends on a much more ambiguous note than the 1969 version, with Mattie actually getting to kill Chaney, only for the act of doing so being directly responsible for her getting bitten by a snake and losing her arm. In addition, she had to witness several people and her beloved horse being gruesomely killed, and ultimately grows up to be a lonely old maid due to her abrasive personality and lack of interest in traditional feminine activities. While Mattie herself seems to have accepted her fate and shows no signs of regret for her choices in her middle age, it is left up to the viewer to decide whether this outcome is an acceptable price for vengeance.
• Water Is Dry: After Mattie has her horse swim across the river, she comes out and there is a shot of her looking at Rooster and LaBoeuf. She has a few drops falling from her hat, but her clothes are nowhere near as soaked as they were a moment ago.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: If you look closely at the final shootout, you'll notice that the gang's doctor lives. He isn't mentioned afterwards, he and his horse are absent from long shots, and Rooster doesn't try to find him in order to treat Mattie after the snake bite, but does mention an unnamed doctor would be miles away.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: Mattie, incredibly smart, stern and determined for her age. Makes sense because of all she's been through and her previous responsibilities. Yet the 2010 adaptation's dark tone at the end is a deconstruction of this - her insistence on getting her way, even through intimidation, may have been cute when she was a child but these traits did not serve her well during her adult years.
• You Are Already Dead: For several seconds after LaBoeuf shoots Pepper at long range, it's unclear that he was hit at all. Then he falls over dead.
• You Talk Too Much!: Let's just let Rooster take this one:
  Rooster: It astonishes me that Mr. LaBoeuf has been shot, trampled, and nearly bitten his tongue off, and yet not only does he continue to talk but he spills the banks of English.

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