The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Graham Craycraft

The Coen Brothers teamed up with Netflix for their latest film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. The Coen Brothers are perhaps the most famous American writing and directing team with many more wins than losses. So even after their most recent film Hail Caesar! I still remained optimistic about their upcoming work. This film is a collection of six short stories all taking place in the American Midwest. The stories range from lighthearted spoofs to some pretty dark, tragic stories. The anthology gets its overall title from the first story so let’s start there.

Staring Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs, the gunslinging, velvet voice, outlaw, the film gets its vibe and face. This is one of the funnier pieces filled with over the top death scenes and some clever word play on the part of Mr. Scruggs. The first installment in the anthology is not afraid to poke fun at westerns that try and take themselves too seriously. They used the same style in one of their previous works True Grit. Buster Scruggs kills eight people in less than 13 minutes. Six over a dispute of whiskey, one over poker, and one due to the other. The piece ends with another death and a passing of the torch so to speak. At the end of each short story, it pans out onto a book with the rest of the words written on how it ended and what may be coming later for the characters. It is a nice little touch that delivers a little more insight.

In the stories “Near Algodones” a similar vibe is held throughout. James Franco plays a bank robber which falls quickly out of control and he is sentenced to death. This is the shortest (at only 11 or so minutes) and funniest story in the film. It serves as a nice little flash in the pan. The final story of the film,  is also quite humorous which is due almost entirely to dialogue and characterization. A few well known actors (Bruno Delbonnel and Saul Rubinek) help to carry the aforementioned humorous draw that runs through the first two stories and the last. There are moments of this humor in “All Gold Canyon” as well, but this hangs around in the middle of the darkest to the lightest. Every story in this film anthology is well told and enjoyable on its face value. The plot in each, except perhaps “Mortal Remains”, is enough of a driving force to make them interesting, but the acting, music composition from Carter Burwell (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri), and dialogue bring the film to a higher standard the Coen Brothers are known for.

“Meal Ticket” starts to draw away from the comedic rhythm established so far by the Coen Brothers. This one stars Liam Neeson as a traveling man who sets up a stage from town to town with his meal ticket, a man without arms or legs, who recites famous classic stories. Neeson’s character and the young disabled man do not talk to each other throughout the entire story. The old man feeds the younger and that’s about it. It is clear to see that this man, although not cruel to the boy, is not overly attached to him either. The title “Meal Ticket” proves true as the story ends as well. The grim and more serious tone taken by the brothers in this story is a departure and gives the audience the first look that the stories are not only disjointed in plot, but also in overall emotion. The same thread is also present in my favorite of the stories “The Gal Who Got Rattled.” The fifth short in the western anthology tells the story of a young woman traveling to Oregon with her brother who dies shortly after the caravan sets off. She is going with him to be married off to a business associate of the brother, but his death sets off an interesting chain of events that eventually leads her out into unknown territory with only one man to look after her. This is the most paced and thoughtful of the stories and serves well as the penultimate episode.

Overall I give The Ballad of Buster Scruggs a 91/100. Give it a watch and let me know what you think.