This is the easiest film review we'll probably ever have to write because there is absolutely nothing that needs to be said about 'True Grit' other than it's a good film and we liked it. Can we have Mark Kermode's job now please?

But since we're being paid by the word we'll elaborate a little to explain that while the Western genre has been undergoing a reinvention ever since 1988's 'Young Guns', all the way to the bleak and brutal 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford', via HBO's ruthless and poetic 'Deadwood' (we never dreamed we'd one day own a boxset of Lovejoy straining to take a piss) 'True Grit' bucks the trend and brings us a simple, old fashioned, Sunday afternoon, cowboy classic.

Hollywood is burdened by the remake just as pop is plagued by the cover version. But the Coen brothers avoid comparisons to the 1969 John Wayne original by adapting Charles Portis' novel to their own vision. The two True Grits are different films of the same story.

This is, for the most part, a two-hander, with Jeff Bridges settling comfortably into the role of the stinking, craggy, arrogant but ultimately righteous Marshall Rooster Cogburn, while Hailee Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross as determined, mature and vengeful, with a Shakespearean turn of phrase. Along for the ride is a surprisingly gruff Matt Damon, as LaBoeuf, who amusingly gets to do an impression of his 'Team America' caricature, following a nasty tongue accident. Josh Brolin's screen time as half-witted murderer Tom Chaney is frustratingly short; the only weakness in the story is how little we get to know about the subject of the trio's manhunt.

And that really is that. No subtext, no parallels with modern America. There's no sex and we can't recall hearing any swearing. There are frequent scenes of violence but even these aren't gratuitously gory or prolonged. This is simple story telling, shot and acted with care to produce satisfying cinematic escapism from a time when you shot first and collected the bounty later.

Stay in your seat for Iris Dement's sublime 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms', which plays over the end credits (thankfully not Matt Damon following in Glen Campbell's footsteps and singing the theme tune).