The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

[peter]

Best summed up as The Cohen brothers do Netflix, it will come as no surprise that this is a film directed by the Cohen brothers and made for - you guessed it - Netflix......and it's great!

Six short vignettes of frontier life in the American West, the film has a cast of talent to die for and makes use of every ounce of it in the rich and colorful tales presented. From the first tale in which we meet the crooning sharpshooter of the title to the last, set almost entirely in a carriage and simply featuring a conversation between the occupants therein, the whole thing is shot through with the rich colours and fantastical bent that give Cohen brothers films their particular stamp. But over and above this (or perhaps underlying it rather) is that, well, Netflix 'feel' that is so hard to pin down but clearly and obviously there.

And this is no criticism. The list of Cohen brothers greats is too long to go into here, but I thought that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was right up there amongst the best. The tales are by no means happy and the quirky comedy of them is (as always) hand in hand with a pathos - an acceptance that the hard nature of the quest of frontiersmen and brutally unforgiving terrain left small space for sympathy or charity - but for those who can dig it, the film offers a great couple of hours entertainment.