Elegant and hilarious mishmash of the brutality of Old West

Hayden Horner

Despite being about the act of dying, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is alive with the Coen brothers’ signature Oscar-winning blend of wit, drama, dark humour and superb screenwriting.

Listed as one of only three filmmakers to have clinched three Oscars for the same film – No Country for Old Men, the Coens are sure to pique the inter- est of the selection panel come awards season in early 2019.

Originally conceived and shot as a six-part series for Netflix, the brothers later decided to cram the episodes into a fulllength film. While not as sombre as their other western True Grit, the Coens’ latest romp is a gnarly yet elegant, well-shot and brilliantly cast hilarious mishmash of the brutality of the Old West.

Connoisseurs of the Western films will immediately recognise and appreciate this is as a distinctly Coen-esque homage to what is possibly a dying genre.

So, what is it about?

Boasting big-screen crowd-pullers such as Tim Blake Nelson (Buster Scruggs), Liam Neeson, James Franco and Zoe Kazan, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a six-part anthology that cooks together in no particular order a series of tales about the Wild West into 133-minute-long visual feast.

With everything from oldman prospectors to wise-cracking outlaws, gunfights at noon and fowl-mouthed bearded poker-playing vermin, the film masterfully brings to screen a mythically violent, picturesque and goofball portrayal of the Old West.

No strangers to shattering expectations with their films, this latest creation from the Coens proves to be no exception. Already boasting an impressive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 7.7/10, the film has also been receiving top reviews from movie critics.

Enjoy this one for the sheer cinematic craftsmanship of it.