James Franco, Liam Neeson and Tom Waits traipse across the prairie in a lovingly crafted collection of vignettes spattered with bloody violence and inky humour
The Coens have given us a hilarious, beautifully made, very enjoyable and rather disturbing anthology of stories from the old west, once planned for television but satisfyingly repurposed for the cinema: vignettes that switch with stunning force from picturesque sentimentality to grisly violence. There’s barely a forehead that doesn’t get a bullet in it sooner or later. One or two of the stories don’t have a satisfying twist in the tail; there is one disconcerting fade-out.
The tales are prefigured with the sight of an old book, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. A hand turns the pages and we see these stories in print, themselves prefaced by an illustrated plate previewing a dramatic moment from what’s to come. Remembering this moment is a stab of audience-interest for each particular episode. One turns out to come from the very end of the story. You are also given just enough time to read some of the text, which is shown again at the end. One appears to tell us something more, something that happens after the story ends on screen. Could a sequel or spin-off be in prospect?
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