I watched the 2011 film True Grit this evening and was well-pleased with it. It's not as common as I would hope, to view a movie worth writing about, so I can appreciate the film for what it was.
One aspect is the faith to believe in the better actions of even the vilest acting people. The title character, a man of true grit, Rooster Cogburn, is taken with whiskey and as mean and emotionless as a rattlesnake. A 14-year-old girl wants to avenge her father's murder and uses Rooster, as well as a shakey Texas Ranger, to track the murderer down.
After inner conflicts of their camp, and both men giving up on themselves as well as the young girl, we soon realize that neither quitter can give up on the girl as she is taken hostage by the murderer of her father and his cronies. Risking their own lives and taking in injury, Rooster and the Ranger save the young girl only to have her fall into a dark pit and bitten by a poisonous snake.
To once again save her life, the Ranger stays back, injured and without horse, so Rooster can rush the young girl to safety. The only horse left is the young girl's horse that she has taken a liking to and has had conversations with, Little Blacky.
What we see now is Rooster riding day to night, wearing the horse down. The young girl is slipping into her poisoned trance and pleads with Rooster to stop so the horse may rest, as she loves the horse as her companion on this journey. Rooster only answers with a prodding of the horse to move faster. Eventually, slowly and painfully, the horse gives out. Rooster, without hesitation, puts a gun to Little Blacky's head and pulls the trigger, all the while with the young girl screaming no repeatedly.
Rooster then picks up the crying child and begins to run with her in his arms to the far and distant doctor's house.
That horses death, after his laborous run, was disturbing and painful to watch. I realized by the end of the movie that it was not because of an inhumane treatment of the horse that I felt bad, but that the sacrifice made thru man and animal kindled my heart.
Backing up to the horse's run, Little Blacky breathed heavier and heavier, snorting while he trotted. When Rooster prodded the horse, the horse revived with energy, on a mission to save the little girl that talked to Little Blacky as a friend. Rooster humanely prevented the horse from suffering an inevitable and painful death by putting it out of its misery. Rooster then takes up the same cross as the horse and runs himself to death to save the girl. Although Rooster lived more days beyond, he willfully laid his life down as the horse did to save the girl.
I may have very well read into the situation but I believe in my own world that the horse was as much in tune with saving the girl, giving out his own life, so that she may live again, just as Rooster and the Ranger found themselves doing. We never see the Ranger again, left to wonder if he never made it from the wilderness and only find later that Rooster eventually passes o fhis old age in a different climated atmosphere.
Where has Rooster gone after his days of redemption of saving a girl who thought him vile and detestable? God knows. Maybe Blacky knows too,
So from a rooster as mean as a rattle snake, to a horse as valiant as the black coat upon which he wore, sacrifice comes from even the darkest shadows, as light and love cannot be extinguished.
