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YMMV / The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Quite a bit, actually.
    • Is Buster Scruggs really a nice, wholesome cowboy who just happens to be on the winning side of multiple violent showdowns and completely justified when it comes to everyone he kills? Or is he an insane outlaw who seems to deliberately find a bunch of situations that allow him to regularly slaughter less capable gunmen? This is also complicated when he dies and ascends to heaven as an angel, somewhat implying the former over the latter. Or maybe the Coens have created a five-minute fictional universe where the rules of morality as we know them don't apply? On that note what would have happened if Curly/Surly Joe's brother hadn't tried to draw the gun with his off-hand? Would Buster still have killed him?
    • The end of "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" has Buster and the Kid sing a duet despite the fact that the former is dead. During the song, while Buster is singing and and flying towards heaven, the Kid is silent and looks to the sky. This implies that the reason they can sing so well together is because the Kid can hear the deceased Buster Scruggs.
    • The idea that the Impresario is a father and the Artist his son puts a far more tragic and unsettling spin on the "Meal Ticket" segment. No real explanation is given for what might have brought the two together in the first place, outside of the Impresario mumbling to an audience member that he found the Artist living on the streets in London.
    • Was the Artist born disabled, or is he perhaps a Shell-Shocked Veteran who lost his limbs to injury or gangrene? England and America had no shortage of wars at the time, after all.
    • Is the Impresario's decision to drop the limbless Artist in the river motivated by pure selfishness, or is it a Mercy Kill to spare both himself and the Artist from their miserable lot in life? The color plate caption at the beginning of the story might suggest the latter.
    • In "All Gold Valley", how good of a guy is the Prospector? He leaves the owl three eggs for its nest... but is that out of kindness or out of the knowledge that owls are dangerous predators? However, a single owl certainly isn't very threatening to even an old man except in the most extreme of circumstances.
    • In "The Gal That Got Rattled," Mr. Arthur seems like a conscientious caravaneer. But wait... that kind of experienced caravaneer would have the presence of mind to check Mr. Longabaugh's corpse for valuables. Miss Longabaugh can't find any of her brother's money... and what is Mr. Arthur so intent on hiding in his saddlebags?
    • In "Mortal Remains," Thigpen and Clarence appear to be bounty hunters, but the former does not like this description, and the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane nature of the story might lead some to believe Thigpen is being totally sincere when he calls the two "reapers" and "harvesters of souls."
    • Adding onto that, is the stagecoach driver just a busy, strict and unfriendly stagecoach driver, or... something else? A Western-themed ferryman in "the passage" between life and death, perhaps? The fact that we never see the driver's face only adds to the ambiguity.
  • Awesome Music: Several.
    • "Cool Water" and "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" from Buster Scruggs' segment definitely stand out. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award.
    • So does "The Unfortunate Lad", the beautifully wistful folk ballad by Brendan Gleeson's character in "Mortal Remains."
    • "The End of Buster Scruggs" is a gorgeous instrumental piece which encompasses pretty much all of the notable musical cues from the movie.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The way Buster dispatches "Surly" Joe is as disturbing as it is hilarious. And if that weren't enough, he immediately turns the tense atmosphere into a cheesy song and dance number that the rest of the saloon goes along with. And it keeps on going even after Joe's brother comes in and becomes realistically distraught over the guy's horrific corpse.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The titular character, Buster Scruggs. Many people wished the film had been solely about his adventures instead of having him only appear in the first segment of the anthology and it ending in his death and ascension to heaven.
    • The bank teller from "Near Algodones," if only for the sheer, unhinged hilarity of Stephen Root's performance.
    • The prospector character from "All Gold Canyon", who's one of the few openly decent people in the whole movie, and played by the legendary Tom Waits to boot.
    • Mr. Arthur, the trail hand from "The Gal Who Got Rattled", who fights off almost an entire Indian tribe single-handedly.
    • For some, the Trapper in "Mortal Remains".
  • Friendly Fandoms: Unsurprisingly, due to the timing of the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, lots of fans of that game have taken a liking to the film due to the subject matter.
  • He Really Can Act: Harry Melling, the Artist, formerly known as Dudley Dursley of the Harry Potter film franchise. Especially as his most effective scenes feature him in complete silence.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: This movie was released on Netflix exactly 20 years after an Arthur episode with a very similar title first aired.
  • Jerkass Woobie: The Impresario is a totally pathetic degenerate, but it's hard not to feel bad for his plight. Especially at the end.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • "First time?" Explanation 
  • Narm: The Latin American Spanish dub has a minor one regarding the voice acting of the titular Buster Scruggs. While the rest of the voice acting of the film, done in Argentina, is quite decent acting-wise, Buster is voiced by a local voice actor, Gustavo Dardés, who tried to adapt the character's thick Texan accent using a Northern Mexican (aka Norteño) accent, which is normally used in Mexican Spanish dubs of Western films when dubbing over Southern accents. The problem here is, his attempt to sound "Norteño", or even Mexican for that matter, is not convincing at all. For those familiar with Anglophone accents, that would be the equivalent of Buster being played by an Australian actor faking a Texan accent, while their Australian accent was still prominent.
  • Squick: The Impresario buys himself some quality time with a prostitute. He does the deed while the Artist is in the room.
  • Stoic Woobie: While his bank-robbing actions could have made him a Jerkass Woobie in a different story, the cowboy in "Near Algodones" is a somewhat sympathetic character who goes through a lot of failures and misfortunes, gets arrested for a crime he actually was innocent of, lives through a wild Indian attack, and is nearly hung twice with the second being fatal, while never quite freaking out, and finding some dark humor in his situation by the end.
  • Too Cool to Live: Buster Scruggs, unfortunately.
  • Watch It for the Meme: Many people see this movie for the "First time?" meme. Apparently, quite a few people thought the scene took place on a pirate ship and that he would've pulled off a Jack Sparrow-esque series of stunts to escape. Instead, he still ends up getting hanged.
  • The Woobie:
    • The Artist (Harrison the Orator) from "Meal Ticket" is a limbless orator who is entirely dependent on a fairly callous impresario and increasingly apathetic audiences for his survival. And he doesn't survive, either.
    • The Prospector in "All Gold Canyon," specifically after he is shot in the back and nearly killed upon finally discovering his long-sought pocket of gold by a claimjumper who let him do all the hard work, and he's so righteously angry over the ordeal that he's brought to tears.
    • Alice Longabough, Billy Knapp, and Mr. Arthur, the three central figures in "The Gal Who Got Rattled." They are each very likable yet incredibly sad characters in their own individual ways. Alice even almost constantly looks like a puppy who just got kicked.

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