La balada de Buster Scruggs

Beautifully observed vignettes which give believable insights into the lives of early settlers to the Wild West. Ironic, tragic and sometimes comic, each one is entertaining in its own way and serves as a reminder of the harshness of the time.

When they remade TRUE GRIT, the Coen Brothers clearly thought there weren't enough John Ford westerns -- I agree with them -- so they offered the audience one. With THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS they clearly think there aren't enough movies offering the strengths of the classic B and short westerns: open vistas, lone prospectors, wagon trains, bank robbers, cattle rustlers, gunslinging, moralizing singing cowboys who wander the barren west, strumming their "Radio King" guitars for their horses, and five people inside a stage yarning to each other. So they stuck together half a dozen stories, got their usual assortment of top talent and offered them to us. I am extremely grateful.

Their cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel, offers us a variety of lighting. I was most impressed by his choices for "The Girl Who Got Rattled", which is staged like posters for WESTWARD THE WOMEN and lit like the covers for Louis Lamour paperbacks in the 1960s. There's an air of artificiality that pervades the movie. That's common enough for the Coens, who like to mock their dead cinematic peers, but. like HAIL, CAESAR shows their fondness for their subject.

This movie has an accumulative effect. The stories range from funny to grim to harrowing to ironic to haunting to horrifying. You barely have time to recover from one before you're thrust into the next one. The format is set up as a dime Western book where we get to see six of the stories. There is a real authentic western feel to them. A real grit.

Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography is spectacular. Wide sweeping vistas, majestic mountains, stylized towns, all beautifully captured. There's also a surreal feel to some the stories. Imagine if 'Pulp Fiction' were all western stories. And on that train of thought, TBoBS succeeds in many areas where 'The Hateful Eight' did not. A great collection of short movies by the Coen Brothers.

How do you rate a movie that is very well done, but you just don't connect with it at all? I love the Coen brothers, and I watched this with an open heart. Not every Coen brothers movie knocks it out of the park, but all of them are at least smart and interesting. The same holds true for this one, though I'm sorry to say that I found myself bored throughout most of it.

Six stories is a lot to process in one sitting. The problem for me was that I would be watching one of the segments, trying to understand its significance or find something to appreciate story-wise, and then we moved on to the next tale.

There was nothing wrong with it and I would consider watching it again some time with a fresh perspective. This movie did seem to have a grasp on itself and I trust that the Coens knew what they were doing. It was very unique and beautifully shot, but I think this one ranks low on the Coen's filmography. And if this wasn't a Coen brothers movie, I would probably be more dismissive of it.

Six separate stories of life in the old west, all visually stunning, well written and acted, some more enjoyable than others. The first story, about the namesake Buster Scruggs, is by far the best. Fast, clever dialog, funny and pays homage to classic Westerns. It easily could have been expanded into a full movie. The second story, which is very short, is full of irony and quite good. The next three stories take a bleak and depressing turn, lose the humor and go on much too long. Another reviewer said it best that although they are well done, it's hard to connect to the characters or stories, and ultimately are boring. I hung on hoping some of the dark wit would return, but it never did.