Joel and Ethan Coen are, by now, known as a brand — at least to film fans who know their work. They specialize in examining America through the lens of a kind of Old Testament view of justice. That is to say, it’s an “eye for an eye” world, and they make sure that viewers know that in this land of opportunity, a price is almost always paid for every act that crosses a moral line.
In “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” justice almost always comes from the barrel of a gun, and that makes sense because all six stories take place on the American frontier of the 1800s. Each story is preceded with a still from a color plate in a book. These are the kind of images one sees in idealized books about the west.
However, this being the Coen Brothers, one is going to get a bit more realism at times — though not always. The first story — which shares the title of the film anthology — has more than a bit of fantasy thrown in. Indeed, it’s almost whimsical at times as the character of Buster (Tim Blake Nelson) talks and sings to the camera while riding his horse through Monument Valley. Indeed, Scruggs is almost too upbeat and cheerful as he goes from bar to bar looking for a drink and a game of cards. But everywhere he goes, there’s violence that awaits him. His optimistic confidence meets its match toward the end where a gunfight with a singing gunfighter ends poorly for Scruggs.
“Near Algodones” finds James Franco playing a cowboy fixated on robbing a bank that’s out in the middle of nowhere. Bank robberies never seem to go as planned in a Coen Brothers film, and this is no exception. There is Stephen Root as the bank teller who is more wily than expected — which adds some nice comedic elements. However, the episode is far too short and the character development a little too thin for viewers to care about the plight of Franco’s characters.
“Meal Ticket” combines high and low culture wrapped in a kind of circus freak bow. Liam Neeson and Harry Melling star as a traveling entertainment promoter and actor who traverse the remote parts of the country with dramatic readings from The Bible, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and other works of high culture. Melling is the actor who lacks arms and legs, so he’s completely reliant on Neeson for his care and feeding. Melling’s job is to uplift souls with stirring speeches to bring in money — which is collected after each performance by passing the hat for coins. The story has a Barton Fink-like commentary on the ability of ordinary folks to understand and appreciate what passes for high culture, and the consequences of not being able to find something marketable to sate the desires of the masses.
“All Gold Canyon” spotlights some good acting work by Tom Waits, but the story of a gold miner who finds a place where he feels the mother lode exists suffers from being a little too stock. I wasn’t sure what the point of the tale was — other than gold makes people greedy and sometimes they do dastardly deeds for selfish gain.
The last story, “The Mortal Remains” also suffers from storytelling that’s a little too on the nose. A group of travelers are on a stagecoach journey to a place called Fort Morgan. However, this is no typical journey out west. The environment they are traveling in seems otherworldly, and the fact that three of the characters don’t know each other, but each takes turns revealing a part of their life that seems more like a confession than idle talk, means our travelers aren’t going to any ordinary fort.
I skipped over the penultimate story, “The Gal Who Got Rattled” because it stands out as being the best in the lot. This tale is about Alice (Zoe Kazan) and her brother, Gilbert (Jefferson Mays) on a wagon train to Oregon. Gilbert dies from some kind of illness while on their trek, leaving Alice to continue to Oregon to marry a man who is said to be her brother’s business partner. The men leading the wagon train, Billy Knapp (Bill Heck) and Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines), are old pros at leading settlers out west. They know the land, know the danger, and know how to survive all sorts of travails — like Indian tribes who aren’t too thrilled with whites settling in the west. Over the course of the story, Alice and Billy start to fall in love and Billy proposes to her saying that he’s been out leading these wagon trains for 15 years and he wants to settle down, do some farming, and raise a family. Plus, because of the Homestead Act, a married couple can get 640 acres of land from the government. It all sounds like the two of them will have a happy ending, until a wrong move on Alice’s part puts her and Mr. Arthur in harm’s way. Since this is a movie made by the Coens, you know happy endings aren’t usually in their wheelhouse. What makes “The Gal Who Got Rattled” so compelling is that the Coens put characters who are sympathetic and honest up front. That gives the audience people —
who seem inherently good — to root for. However, these characters are not one-dimensional. Rather, they have complex lives, they question things with a restrained skepticism, and they see opportunities in life not as schemes to enrich themselves, but rather as plans to work hard to carve out a happy life. Those are the very things that make tragedies that befall people of moral fortitude so painful to watch — which is why this story works so well. The Coens excel at creating the conditions where Old Testament justice feels particularly harsh in “The Gal Who Got Rattled.” And while the story has an unhappy ending, it demonstrates powerful storytelling by filmmakers who, when at their best, create compelling narratives about the dark underbelly of humanity.
