Book Review: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

[Katie-Ellen]

Title: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Tagline: Stories live forever. People don't.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Western, Music

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, Jonjo O'Neill, Saul Rubinek, Chelcie Ross, Harry Melling, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Stephen Root, David Krumholtz, Clancy Brown, Ralph Ineson, Matthew Willig, Jesse Luken, Paul Rae, Tom Proctor, Tim DeZarn, E.E. Bell, Martin Palmer, Danny McCarthy, Billy Lockwood, Jackamoe Buzzell, Sam Dillon, Jefferson Mays, J. Nathan Simmons, Willie Watson, Katy Bodenhamer, Jiji Hise, Austin Rising, Stephen R. Estler, Grace LeSueur, Ethan Dubin

Release: 2018-11-09

Runtime: 132

Plot: Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.



It's an extremely powerful, thoughtful, bizarre, black comedy that just carries on gaining in pathos and brutality. Moving and upsetting, especially story 5, and definitely ...picaresque.

 

[Leonora]

Saving this for Xmas viewing when our son's back from uni. We are all big Coen Brothers fans. All time favourite in our house is The Big Lebowski.

 

[Webbwalker]

It's billed as a dark comedy but the first story aside, I didn't laugh at all. I enjoyed it at first but story by story, it wore me down and I was left feeling really depressed. I wouldn't want to see it again.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The teeny angel wings were funny as Buster floats off to heaven. I can't say I laughed otherwise. Very moving, not to say upsetting, two of the stories in particular.

 

[yanapuma]

I'm looking forward to this ... a huge Cohen bro fan ... just finished watching Sharp Objects on HBO .. Gillian Flynn thingy ... dark and very disturbing at times but quite brilliant ... and Amy Adams is impressive

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Watched it again last night. It's brilliant. Sting after sting like a procession of scorpions.

Guardian review: Buster Scruggs

 

[Andy D]

It's billed as a dark comedy but the first story aside, I didn't laugh at all. I enjoyed it at first but story by story, it wore me down and I was left feeling really depressed. I wouldn't want to see it again.

Yeah, I’d second that. Individually as stories they may have worked but one after another just ground me down. Big Labowski, True Grit, that one with George Clooney as the Roman - all of those, it ain’t

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I nearly didn't finish it the first time for the same reasons. It's more and more brutal the more you think about it, and the stories get darker and darker. But it is ingenious story telling, artistic cinematography, superbly written, deep, intelligent, wry, tragic but brilliant.

Same people as the movie Fargo. Not the series.

 

[AgentPete]

Hello @Katie-Ellen,

We are changing the status of this ticket to closed as we have not heard back from you in 7 days.