The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

A new Coen brothers film is usually good news and this time they have turned their hand to a Western for the first time since True Grit in 2010.

But now for the bad news. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is on at just two London cinemas, both Curzon cinemas. The explanation is that the film is available on Netflix. I have heard good reports of The Crown, also on Netflix, but available as a box set. I’m not sure I will watch as it already runs to twenty episodes and has only got as far as 1964. If Netflix is going to compete with cinemas it is worrying for dinosaurs with no TVs.

But back to Buster which is actually six stories originally conceived by the Coen Bros as a TV series. They are Western cliches with Coen Bros fairy dust, otherwise known as wit and cynicism. First up is Buster’s ballad that I took to be an homage to Calamity Jane and The Paleface, albeit Buster is a guy. The other chapters have the obligatory bank robbery, a wagon train on the prairie, a yarn about an old-timer prospecting for gold, a travelling showman and a set piece in a stage coach that reminded me of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Twice there are Red Indians with tomahawks galloping over the skyline as in Stagecoach (1939) – bliss.

The other ingredient so essential to a proper Western is scenery. I was brought up on The Lone Ranger so I appreciate wide panoramic vistas and, of course, so much better in a proper cinema than on a small screen at home. However, the British public do not agree with me. There were only ten of us at the screening yesterday.

I nearly forgot. It has a pretty starry cast including those tongue twisters Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson.