Whoever decided to remake this movie, should be taken out behind the woodshed. Not for remaking it, but for doing such an awful job. Casting Lou Diamond Phillips as Quirt Evans was the first mistake. He does a good bad guy, but is totally unconvincing as the love interest of a Quaker woman. And Deborah Kara Unger isn't much better as Temperance, she just doesn't come across well as a Quaker woman. There is just no believable spark or magnetism between the two.
You simply don't remake a John Wayne classic without putting the right actors in the right places. And in my mind, you just don't remake a John Wayne classic, period. The True Grit remake is an exception, it was well-cast and well done in every aspect. This movie just wasn't convincing. And for a color movie, it has too much of that modern mistake of trying to evoke some Hollywood-imagined atmosphere with toned-down colors. I suppose that is intended to focus us more on the characters, but all it did was focus us on the fact that the casting and acting was bad. I wouldn't recommend this sad excuse for a remake to anyone. And I am unbelievably puzzled by anyone who gives it a good review, I guess it doesn't take much to please people these days.
