The Coen Brothers’ latest boot jingling, gun slinging film is an entertaining and fresh take on the usually worn-on Western genre. ​The Ballad of Buster Scruggs​ is one of the best westerns I’ve seen.

After my dad told me about it, I was immediately interested, and after I heard it was a Coen Brothers’ film, I knew I had to see it. Not only are Westerns some of the best pieces of literature and film, but I also love the films directed by the Coen Brothers. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ​is an excellently filmed, written, and directed movie. I will say, the way it was segmented into six short films was a surprise to me, but in the end I realized this was probably the best move. The transition scene between the stories was an opening of an old “legends of the west” ten cent novel and flipping of pages, which were the stories themselves. This really helps sell the movie in terms of being a western, however, don’t get the idea this was the only positive aspect of the shot composition in this movie.

The overall cinematography of this film exceeded my expectations, not that my expectations were low to begin with. Before I explain the merits of the filming, let me say, the first time I watched this, there was something about the appearance of the movie that kind of threw me off. I’m still not sure what exactly it was, but there’s some kind of old western color filter superimposed onto the shots which make it look a lot cheesier than the majority of the camerawork in the movie. These shots were rare, but whenever they were there, it was a huge distraction for me. How can I care, or simply pay attention to what’s happening on screen when I can’t even enjoy looking at the screen. This was really the only major problem I had with the movie. As for the rest of the camerawork, it was excellent. The directors clearly knew what they wanted their scenes to look like and the cameramen did a remarkably good job to translate the stage directions to the screen.

The plot, or rather plots, were all very interesting and completely different from other stories shown. They all seemed to have a rather dark theme of eventually, no matter who you are, what you’ve gone through, what you’ve seen and done, death will catch up to you and surprise you. However, this dark theme was countered by the overall cheeriness of the movie. Personally, I thought this was a great move by the Coen Brothers. Instead of ridiculous western stories, these stories were crazy, mostly believable, and emotionally heavy. That is not to say there was no ridiculousness in the movie, which I usually don’t like, but I believe to create a good western, you have to have at least a bit of quirkiness.

I’d compare this film to another Coen Brothers’ western film, True Grit. While both of these movies are set in the Wild West, that’s about where the similarities end. While The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is mostly lighthearted with some more serious scenes scattered within, and True Grit is mostly serious with scatterings of funny, lighthearted scenes. True Grit, however, does play on the mood of the viewers in the same way The Ballad of Buster Scruggs does. They both have multiples scenes where the protagonist has to face a very challenging choice, which will have serious consequences. True Grit is a great film, as is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and I’m glad the Coen Brothers are so consistently great at making films. Overall, I’d rate The Ballad of Buster Scruggs three smiley faces out of five.