The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a collection of cowboy tales, tenuously linked but glued together in true Coen style — with wit and humour and some surprisingly strong violence
IT appears there are still some people left on Earth who don’t like the Coen Brothers films.
Don’t be one of those people - they seem like people with no joy left in them.
TBOBS is a collection of short cowboy tales seemingly tenuously linked but nevertheless glued together in true Coen style - there is politeness in the western dialogue, sharp detail delivered with wit and humour and some rather surprising displays of strong violence.
With the cheery and lethal title character played by Tim Blake Nelson only lasting a mere chapter, it’s down to a range of stars to crop up throughout, each with their own tone and style, from Tom Waits (wonderful as a grumpy gold prospector) Liam Neeson to James Franco with Harry Potter’s Harry Melling (remember Dudley Dursley?) being especially good.
It’s a beautiful study/homage/lecture on America’s relationship with the Wild West with liberal sprinklings of their trademark humour and was said to have taken the brothers 25 years to write.
They should have given Hail Caesar and Suburbicon a swerve and concentrated on this. Not all the chapters work as well as some, but as an entire ‘being’, it’s deeply enjoyable.
It’s on Netflix so no excuses - get on with it.
