The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) * *

Directed by:  Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Starring:  Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Harry Melling, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Brendan Gleeson, Saul Rubinek

The Coens anthology tribute to the Old West is something I can't make heads or tails of.   Broken down into six unrelated tales of the often romanticized West, the opening story starring Tim Blake Nelson as the singing, gunslinger crack shot title character is the best of the bunch.   Scruggs is a wanted outlaw, but he disarms those (and us) with his charisma and singing.   He can't possibly be the nasty guy he is purported to be, could he?   Well, he can be that mean fella if you start a fight with him, and many do with deadly consequences.    This story is part musical, part choreography, and mostly gets by on Nelson's charms as an actor. 

The second story stars James Franco as a bank robber who meets a sad, yet somewhat happy (under the circumstances) ending.  You'll see what I mean.    Franco's bank robber should've tried his hand at something else, because he has zero luck as a criminal.   

The third story, which works in its own quiet, ruthless way, stars Liam Neeson (who does not kick anyone's ass or blow holes in any bad guys here) as a businessman whose star client is an armless, legless British actor (Melling) who recites poetry and speeches from famous plays to ever-dwindling crowds.    With a shrinking profit margin and increasing overhead needed to feed and shelter his act, Neeson coldly looks at the disappearing bottom line and makes a cruel, yet financially necessary (in his mind) decision.   

Fourth story stars Tom Waits as a gold prospector who, after days of patiently and painstakingly attempting to find gold in a small river, finally strikes it rich only to have his partner turn on him.    This takes too long to build and leads to an ending which would surprise and even delight us if we cared more. 

Our fifth story starring Zoe Kazan as a young woman widowed while traveling on a stagecoach train out west.    We have a lot of stodgy dialogue in which Kazan and a would-be suitor use formality to hide their real feelings for each other, ending in a shootout with local Native American fighters. 
Yawn.

The final story involves a bounty hunter who tells his professional tales to a group of passengers on a train.   At that point, I was not inspired to watch the rest to see how it turned out, as the characters drone on endlessly.   Whatever payoff existed wasn't worth the journey.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs paints the Old West in more violent and likely realistic terms than previous movies or stories covering the period and locale.   Buster Scruggs has convincingly dusty, dry, or even cold and dark landscapes with its top flight production values.   The movie looks right, but it's an ultimately overlong and overdrawn exercise.