The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

photo courtesy of theatlantic.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Master filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology western film for Netflix. The movie is comprised of six short stories: “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” “Near Algodones,” “Meal Ticket,” “All Gold Canyon,” “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” and “The Mortal Remains.” The stories are self-contained, but they share a western setting and a darkly ironic tone. The cast features a number of big names, including Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Brendan Gleeson, and Tyne Daly.  

     In The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen brothers operate at the top of their game. More than many of their recent collaborations, Buster Scruggs displays the directors’ natural talent for black humor and shrewd storytelling. The movie’s six component pieces, each clever in their own way, nimbly balance humor with drama and violence, occasionally giving way to nuggets of insight.

photo courtesy of vanityfair.com

     Buster Scruggs features plenty of action, but it favors dialogue and slow-burn drama, so anybody looking for fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat storytelling will probably want to keep looking. In truth, Buster Scruggs is generally better the more time it takes to develop. The earlier stories, which have a shorter runtime, are naturally somewhat less engaging than the later, more settled ones.

     Any good anthology ought to be able to hang together, at least thematically, despite the disparate storylines in its individual parts. The stories in Buster Scruggs feel fairly original, and they complement each other, artfully musing on same basic set of ideas. If anything, Buster Scruggs ought to have allowed a bit more variation in the surface level details—it could benefit from a protagonist or two with more widely differing perspectives.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is rated R.

TRAILER

Watch the trailer here. 

photo courtesy of geektown.co.uk