The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

This is a hard to describe recent Netflix film by the Coen brothers which lives up to their eclectic reputation.

A series of vignettes, the movie is the cinematic equivalent of a collection of short stories and is presented in that fashion.  Each vignette, set in the American West, is presented through a filmed page in a book, shown in the style of books in regards to illustrations and printing that predominated for the first half of the 20th Century.

The opening story is the one that contributes its name to the movie.  It's a send up of the old singing cowboy movies but with a plot turned on its head. Buster Scruggs, the singing cowboy, is also a cheerful misanthrope who is essentially a cartoon in character.  Amusing but overdone, the first scene is accordingly not one of the better ones in the film.

The second one, entitled Near Algodones, is much better, featuring James Franco as a would be bad man who cheats death repeatedly.  The opening of this story is improbable, but its a comedic role which somewhat serves to point out in more than one way the absurdity of spaghetti westerns.  It's well done and serves to start to revive what the first scene somewhat lost.

The third act is the extremely dark Meal Ticket.  It's frankly disturbing in content and would have been better left out of the film as it doesn't contribute to it and is very odd and disconcerting.

The fourth, All Gold Canyon, starts off as a charming study of an elderly prospector before taking no less than two Saki like plot twists that are very well done.

After that comes the best episode of the film, The Gal Who Got Rattled, which in spite of its dark and morally objectionable conclusion probably better depicts characters on the actual Oregon Trail better than any other movie or television show ever made, including its depiction of a frontier 19th Century marriage proposal.  Again, its depiction of suicide is morally objectionable, but the rest of the episode is a surprisingly accurate look at the characters of the time and in context.

The final scene, The Mortal Remains, is a purely allegorical depiction of a trip over the River Styx which I suspect a lot of viewers won't quite get.  For those who do, however it's well done.

The reputation of the Coen brothers is well established by now and this film fits right in with their prior works.  It is, as noted, difficult to review in the fashion of the films normally reviewed here as it it doesn't intend to be an accurate historical movie.  Nonetheless, in one scene it manages to go further than other movies depicting the same events and in terms of comedic effect, Near Algodones is well done in the Coen brothers style.