Review: The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs Is A Meandering, Meaningless Collection
- Nov 18, 2018
- 2 min read
Oh, what could have been.
The latest from the Coen Bros. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs is a western anthology telling a series of tales from all across the wild west. Gunslingers, gold seekers and caravan trains are just a small slice of what await in the star studded piece. A star studded disappointment. A wander through the West with very little to say, and even less to see. The titular Scruggs describes the scenery as monotonous. The Coens should've take the hint.
The most important thing in an anthology is consistency. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs is anything but. From out and out comedy to dead serious story telling, it feels more like a collection of independently made Youtube shorts rather than a feature length production by two of the greatest living directors. With the exceptions of All Gold Canyon and The Gal Who Got Rattled, it's all pretty underwhelming. So I'm just gonna talk about those two.
All Gold Canyon tells the story of a prospector, played by Tom Waits, who has journeyed to an idyllic slice of the world in search of gold. It's a pretty tight story, not overly complex in its story but with just enough within the characters and writing to get the mind working. It feels like the Coens distilled into twenty minutes or so. It's simple, and for that, it excels.
The Gal Who Got Rattled feels much more like a classic western story. Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan), alongside her brother, departs on the Oregon Trail, with the promise of marriage at the end of it. Fate however, has other plans. Unlike All Gold, The Gal is a little grander. Cowboys and Indians, moral and ethical issues, all that kind of stuff. It's also a little longer, I believe the longest of each of the segments, and it shows. It, along with All Gold, contains actual characters instead of caricatures, storytelling instead of script ideas, and a climax that, unlike almost every other short, has some kind of payoff.
Between Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, James Franco, Stephen Root and Tim Blake Nelson, you'd think the Coen Bros. would have been able to strike western gold for the third time. But, with the exception of an aging prospector and a wagon train, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs is a collection of underwhelming, half baked ideas that end just as they get interesting, or shaft their best characters. Points for pan banker.
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