The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Comedy, Drama, Western and even a bit of a Musical
This is the latest from the Coen Brothers (2018)
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen plus 2 more credits.
Stars: Tim Blake Nelson, Willie Watson, Clancy Brown, James Franco, Liam Neeson
An anthology film comprised of six stories/segments, each dealing with a different aspect of life in the Old West.
It opens with Buster Scruggs dressed in all white from Cowboy hat to boots, sitting on top of his horse Dan, walking down some old west trail and Buster breaks into song.. lol
It is not really a Musical, but this first segment has Buster in song quite abit.. and it is rather a good segment.
Segment 1: "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"
[Buster Scruggs, a top his horse in bright white duds].
'A song never fails to ease my mind out here in the West, where the distances are great and the scenery monotonous. Additionally, my pleasing baritone seems to inspirit ol' Dan here and keep him in good heart during the day's measure of hoof clops. Ain't that right, Dan?'
[his horse neighs]
Buster is played by Tim Blake Nelson, who has been in at least one other Coen production (Oh Brother,Where Art Thou).
Watching the whole first segment or story , I thought now what the heck was that ???
So I watched it again. It is quite good, I loved it :)
The other segments , not so much.
They all are of the Coen Brothers caliber and not disappointing, but seems they just do not have a purpose except to be just a story and I guess that is the whole point which the Brothers wanted, each different story of life in the Old West..
Kinda hard to describe but the stories (all the stories) are easy to see that they are the work of the Coen Brothers.
One story with Liam Neeson, deals with a guy in the Old West and his traveling show. The show consists of a man with no arms or legs and all he does is tell a tale to the audience... nothing really happens. This segment I did not watch twice and actually was looking for the end of the story which came not soon enough.
Another segment with James Franco did better. It had that calmness from characters, even doing criminal activity or when they were about to be hanged. Added to the effect of the story :)
At one point, Franco with a noose around his neck turns to another guy beside him also with a noose around his neck too, but the guy was sobbing and crying. Franco's character turns to him and says to him...."This your first time ?"
Overall I never really got too interested in 4 segments outta the 6 segments in total.
The two segments I did like were were the high point of this Coen movie (for me anyway).
They were the Tim Blake Nelson (Buster) and James Franco (Bank Robber) segments.
So, maybe a generous 3 thumbs up outta 5 thumbs :)
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...82,268_AL_.jpg
