Although it benefits from being a Coen Brothers film and has their usual style of dark humor and love of westerns, Buster Scruggs falls short of some of their greater films.
Everything about The Ballad of Buster Scruggs screams unique. It's a big release film for Netflix, and the Coen Brothers first film release for the streaming giant. It has a star studded cast with a basic Gangs of New York reunion for stars Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson with an even surprise short lived appearance from Leonardo Dicaprio. The way the film is made as an eight part film series is extremely different as well, especially for a western. Yet with even all of this, Scruggs just doesn't fit well as a whole. Some parts of it are uninteresting and painfully slow, and the plot dwindles on more than one occasion. Because of this, it's no where near as great as True Grit or No Country For Old Men, which were highly entertaining even at their slowest points.
Some of the stories were indeed interesting in Scruggs, including the title story and Zoe Kazen's. When the plot of these short films were strong it was indeed entertaining to watch, which doesn't make Scruggs a horrible film by any means. There's plenty of dark humor throughout the movie that make you appreciate it for what it is. There's events in the movie that screams out the Coen Brother's signature trade marks of film making, and fans of the directors certainly won't be disappointed.
It's also great to see so many great actors in a modern day western, especially James Franco. Although his part was small (each mini film is about ten minutes) it's a stand out performance, and a comical one at that, as always. Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs, and Tom Waits as an older gold digger are some of the other highlights of the film.
Even the actors however, can't save Scruggs in the long run. It just isn't interesting enough. You get bored throughout the movie more than once, and some of the scenes don't necessarily need to be in the film at all. The musical part of the movie doesn't really go well with the film either, and it actually could have benefited from it not being a musical western.
If it would have been a shorter film with a way to have continued one whole story line instead of eight or ten, it would have been a much better movie, despite the Coen Brothers wanting to try something new.
As great as the Coen Brothers are, they always can't make perfect movies, and Scruggs is by far from perfect. It's not horrible, though either, but is no means a best picture contender for 2018.
C+
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