It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Rooster Cogburn has John Wayne reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn from True Grit that won him his only Academy Award of his legendary film career.The sequel of the said film is once again based on Charles Portis' novel True Grit and legendary actress Katherine Hepburn co-stars.In it,Rooster is faced with a dilemma wherein he must win his badge back after he lost it due to his routine arrests that have ended in bloodshed.This time,he must bring down a group of bank robbers who has stolen a wagon shipment of nitroglycerin.He is assisted by his spinster daughter Eula Goodnight,who makes as an unwilling partner.The sequel of True Grit fails short of being at par with the original as it basically rehashes the successful elements of the first film.It was also noticeable that both Wayne and Hepburn are somewhat uncomfortable with each other that both seem to look awkward on screen in the only film that they made together.But in spite of it,it would still provide a lot of enjoyment and entertainment for John Wayne and Western fans as it provides a lot of fun and action scenes.

John Wayne was one of the fundamental stars of the movies and when one bought a ticket to a John Wayne movie, one was assured of a fine movie! Executive Producer Hal Wallis bought together John Wayne and one of the other great stars of the era Katharine Hepburn for this movie. The film shot in Oregon has wonderful scenic shots. It is wonderful to see the great Hepburn riding a horse and sparring with John Wayne in this film. Katharine Hepburn who in her long career worked with James Stewart, Cary Grant, Peter O'Toole, and her great love Spencer Tracy among others is equal to John Wayne in all matters in this film. And John Wayne loves every minute of it! Producers like Hal Wallis and Stars like John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn do not exist anymore in today's Hollywood! How they are missed!David Barra Los Angeles

Now that the two stellar co-stars are long gone, the truth can be told:Rooster Cogburn is turkey, a formulaic film designed by the marketing department, written by a writer paid by the word, directed by a producer who was faking it. Some posters praise the chemistry between Wayne and Hepburn. What chemistry? They seem to be reading their lines off a Teleprompter, and in a great hurry. This trivia tidbit tells it all:-- Director Stuart Millar insisted on so many takes that eventually John Wayne snapped, "God damn it Stuart, there's only so many times we can say these awful lines before they stop making any sense at all." --A better director might have been able to get truer performances out of these great stars, but Millar, a fine producer but apparently a talentless director, got little more than worn pennies. A good director would have told them to slow down, breathe, react and interact. Or just let these stars alone. There's not much of a plot, and the writer doesn't do much of setting up the relationship; Hepburn just suddenly decides to tag along with Wayne, after the promised posse just happens to not show up, and Wayne puts up very little argument against what should have been absolutely against his code. So the setup has little credibility to begin with. The comparison with African Queen is obvious, too obvious, complete with a ride down the rapids. It sets Rooster Cogburn a very high standard to live up to, and it falls flat. It looks like some movie execs figured it was a can't-fail formula. In African Queen there was some tension in the initial relationship between Hepburn and Bogart, two odd fish brought together, but both transform the other, so you get personality development in the film.But in Cogburn there is no personality development, and way too much chatter that makes you want to fall asleep. Hepburn is constantly spouting platitudes and homilies, while Wayne has little more than cornball lines. The other movie this inevitably gets compared with is The Shootist, Wayne's next and last film with Lauren Bacall (ironically, Bogart's long, faithful wife.) Here, Wayne showed he could still act, and there was real chemistry between Wayne and Bacall. I suspect when Bacall looks out the window crying, the tears were real, though she may have also been thinking of Bogie, who, like Wayne, died of lung cancer. By the 1970s the problem was not that audiences were tired of Westerns so much as that it was hard to find new angles on this genre. Cogburn tries, but needed a less routine plot. Rooster Cogburn falls into the "end of the cowboy era" Western, with the judge firing him for killing too many bad guys, but fails to develop the theme. The Shootist, on the other hand, succeeds wonderfully. Like Westerns at their best, it uses the genre to tell the story of a man dying of cancer, alone in a world that no longer has any use for gunslingers, who did good but was hated by almost everyone. You see some similarities in "Monte Walsh" decades later. It is the movie Rooster Cogburn tried to be. In short, a great Western transcends its genre. Rooster Cogburn, unfortunately, barely rises above a B movie, even with the heavy lifting of its stars.The low point in the movie is a plastered Wayne doing skeet shooting and never missing, but who can't stand up on his own, and then drives off with a wagon full of nitroglycerin, which could have blown up even with the most careful, sober handlers. The movie would have been better off if it had. Cogburn is full of such improbable details. Why are they hauling bottles of nitroglycerin when there are also crates labeled dynamite? Dynamite, invented in 1867, is stable in transport, and made nitroglycerin, which is extremely unstable and dangerous, obsolete. Obviously, based on the movie's rating, there are fans of John Wayne who will watch anything he's made. But fans of Katherine Hepburn will be appalled, for Rooster Cogburn is a disgrace to her memory. It is by far the worst movie she ever made; I can't think of anything even close. If you imagine seeing this movie without knowing who the two stars are, what you are left with is a lethargic, overly long chase with some of the most atrocious dialog every committed by a major studio. The script is garbage that leaves a bad taste long after seeing it. So, minus the stars, this movie would rate somewhere between a 4 and a 2. It is really that bad.Still, John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn could have been great in a Western together. I would have loved to have seen them in Going' South, instead of Jack Nicholson and Mary Steenburgen, especially in that scene with the brass bed and ropes. Hmmmm. You know, that's what Rooster Cogburn needed: for the Duke to tie Hepburn up and stick a gag in her mouth.

That's the hero of African Queen of course and as many others have noted, you can't help but think of it while watching John and Kate interact. I've seen almost every picture John Wayne made after 1939 but waited until near the last to watch this one because I just couldn't believe it would live up to True Grit and it doesn't. About ten minutes into the film there's a scene with Rooster dancing around his back room apartment singing about being retired that almost made me turn it off. That's not the Rooster Cogburn I knew and loved from True Grit, not even close -- it's not even Charlie Allnut. My main problem with this movie is that I would have preferred it not to be a sequel to True Grit -- that story and the Rooster Cogburn character is somewhat sacred to me and if they weren't going to be true to them, why not just make it a generic John Wayne vehicle of the time? There's a lot to like about the movie so I give it a recommend. There's the genial inter-action between the two stars who don't let the mediocre script and story get in the way. The scenery is fine, really beautiful and to me that means a lot in a western. Though the script is poorly written, the story is actually pretty good. However, in addition to the crime of tarnishing the memory of a great film and performance, the direction is poor and the bad guys just chew up the dialogue in ham-handed fashion so it's not a very high recommend. Maybe you're better off to skip this one and do what I'll be doing this afternoon, watch True Grit.