I was calibrated to the wrong type of Coen Brothers film when I sat down to watch The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.* What I found were six pretty good stories firmly set in the business-as-usual Wild West.** It had the usual Coen touches,*** but I found the short story format overall to be a little draggy.
Verdict: Good
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home, with a lot of scenes viewed through my fingers
*I was thinking this was more of an O Brother Where Art Thou?/Hail, Caesar!/Intolerable Cruelty. Fun and peppy. But it was more of a No Country for Old Men. Bloody and sad.
**You know, white men wander about doing their thing, Indians attack, women are minor characters. There’s no new ground being broken on this front.
***Visually memorable, great acting via facial expression, some odd turns.