The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

2018 Western anthology

Rating: 16/20 (Dylan: 13/20; Jen: stopped paying attention)

Plot: Six darkly violent stories from the wild west in the mid-19th Century.

With the first of the six short stories in this Western anthology, the Coens gleefully announce, "Hey, audience! We're going to kill characters you just met and maybe fell in love with, and we're going to have a blast doing it!" The first installment features the titular singing sharpshooter, and it contains a couple tunes that could be mistaken for songs straight from an earlier musical Western if you aren't paying close attention. The notes echo off canyons, and Tim Blake Nelson, all dressed in white like the good guy he isn't, shows off his pipes as this seemingly affable but appallingly sadistic cowboy. Then, you get the violence, as cartoonish as a Looney Tune or Tom and Jerry. It's all done with the kind of visual flair and flamboyance that made Raising Arizona so much fun. You get sunlight through bullet holes, an outline of canyon dust in the shape of Buster as he slaps himself free of it upon entering a saloon, and even a shot from the inside of the guitar that Scruggs strums as he rides his percussive horse.

Not all of the six shorts share the lighthearted and violent tone of the first one, but they all have death as a thread that weaves them together. The sixth ties their room together like Lebowski's rug, nailing down a not-all-that-complex theme that probably didn't need nailed down. All of these shorts look spectacular enough to make me wish I'd seen this on the big screen, some Wild West establishments that look about as authentic as a technicolor set from a 1950's pop Western and loads of gorgeous shots of the prairie or a stream near a prospector's Mr. Pocket. The sixth--"The Mortal Remains"--is maybe the most visually evocative. Most of it showcases the five characters in a stagecoach, but a perspective shot of a haunting driver, the look of the middle-of-nowhere town they arrive in, and a shot of some characters walking up some stairs are probably my favorite shots in these.

I thought for sure each of these was going to have an important animal in them. Scruggs had his President Pierce, James Franco had his own horse (Dan the horse), Tom Waits' prospector had a mule named Lucky and a nosy owl, and a really smart chicken plays a key role in one of these. Oh, and one has a dog that plays a prominent role. The last has a horse, but the damn thing doesn't even get a name.

The danger of an anthology film is that some of the chapters could be significantly weaker than the others. I don't think that's the case here, not one of the six really serving as a weak link.

The second, the one with James Franco, is hilarious tragic, giving me the phrase "Pan shot!" to yell at my confused family members when they least expect it and ending with a final observation that is likely the second most touching thing in the movie. The narrative bounces far too many places in the short running time, but "Near Algodones" is likely the funniest of these.

"Meal Ticket" has a darkness rivaled only by "The Mortal Remains," but it still seems like the set-up of a macabre punchline. Liam Neeson is mostly (entirely?) silent for the duration, and Harry Melling never shuts up as this limbless orator/actor/reciter. They're both great, but what Melling does is nearly perfection.

"The Gal Who Got Rattled" almost has a spoiler in the title. Here the Coens get downright romantic although given the theme they're exploring with these Western short stories, you can probably guess how it all turns out.

And there's Tom Waits himself in "All Gold Canyon," a great role for him as he gets to show off an ability to carry a chunk of movie with nobody to talk to but himself, a mule, and Mr. Pocket. He's so fucking good, bringing to life this prairie-wise old prospector that might shoot him near the top of my favorite Coen characters. And that says a lot because the Coens have a terrific collection of characters. Waits even gets to sing a bit.

This will go down as a lower-echelon Coen project, and although I'm not sure it's all that deep or complex, it's the most fun movie they've made in over a decade. It almost seems like they had some goofy demons to exorcise or something.

Actually, Hail, Caesar! seems like they were having a lot of fun, too. So forget I said that. Hail, Caesar! is a lot more complex, however.