American Buffalo (1996)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Admirable film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Blistering performances.

A film starring Dustin Hoffman, plus the chief super from the Hill Street Blues, from an adapted script by screen writing legend David Mamet, at a pocket-money price? Why hadn't I heard of it, what was wrong with it.Nothing - except it's more a filmed play than a film, with almost all the talky dialogue taking place in a dusty old New York junk shop. Dustin Hoffman is superb, mixing a florid torrent of irrelevant comment, swearing and unease that is not a far cry from his brilliant turns in Rain Main and Midnight Cowboy. Dennis Franz, meanwhile is the shop's proprietor and is an almost opposite, a masterclass in understated body language as the rants from Teach (Hoffman) have become like water off a duck's back.A third character, black youth Sean Nelson is the dog's body of the outfit and has his own agendas to deal with. The U.S coin of the title is one that might be worth a lot of money, or is it? Having sold it for more than they thought it worth, do they steal it back, just in case it's worth thousands?Mamet's dialogue crackles with a crisp reality - Teach swears like a trooper, with F and C swear words jumbled up along with everything else. He's harmless, you conclude, if not obviously emotionally damaged. Donny, (Franz) says as much and as little as most shopkeepers say; only when it's needed to get a deal done; to clarify a point.It undoubtedly would have had more impact and urgency within the confines of a set in an actual theatre, but on DVD it's OK. The shop, at least looks like a proper shop with a plethora of junk, the clutter adding to the feeling of messed up lives, somehow.Sadly, this won't appeal to everyone. There's no real action to speak of, no pretty women to break up the squalid male-ness and like Teach's dialogue, the story goes round in circles. However, this tale of emerging bitterness and feelings of underachievement is palpable and engaging, if you let it. Personally, I'm glad I chanced upon it.

I've never seen this play performed except for that time in college when I directed a scene from it. I deliberately avoided this movie at the time so as not to color my direction any particular way. The way I see the play is a couple of old guys sitting around a resale shop talking about stealing a guy's coin collection, sort of fooling themselves into thinking they're even capable of such a thing. My ideal cast would be (undead) Lemmon and Matthau, but it could also work with some very young people who don't know better. The point is, the crime is that distant idea which is captivating, but an impossibility. It's like folks who dream about winning the lottery and imagine what they'd do with those vast riches, but know inside that it'll never happen.This movie's mistake, in my eyes as a one-time director, is that it almost makes the crime plausible. Don, owner of the shop, and Teach, his talkative buddy, go through the plan of what to do when they get to the guy's house. How do they get inside? Go through a window the guy left open. What if there's no window? There's always something - kick in the door if you have to. Okay, where does the guy keep his coins? In his desk drawer. How do you know? C'mon, they have to be in there. If he's got a safe? Find the combination written down somewhere in the house. What if he didn't write it down? Everybody writes it down! How do we even know he's not home right now? They call the number and are shocked when someone actually answers. But they dialed the wrong number anyway. The long discussions these two have about the plan is a lot like some little kids having a play war in the backyard. No detail of the fantasy is too small and if things don't work out, you can always whip out an imaginary sword and gut your enemy, just like Teach plans to somehow find a safe combination hidden somewhere in a whole house.This play always worked better as a sad little comedy to me. The movie's director, one Mr. Michael Corrente, has turned it into a real caper movie! That's too easy a choice to make, too on the nose, and it doesn't allow the audience to see the irony of these washed up crooks trying desperately to convince themselves that they've still got what it takes. I never saw these guys as taking the whole thing too seriously as an actual thing that they were going to do. I just see Lemmon and Matthau trying to entertain themselves with the notion that they're going to commit a crime together, like the old days. Maybe Teach thinks it's a real thing, but not Don. Don is just the one who plays along with Teach's wild fantasies. Not in this movie. Here Don is every bit as committed to the theft as Teach, and just as devastated when it looks impossible. I didn't laugh as much at this movie as I did at the play in my mind. This thing is just depressing.http://www.movieswithmark.com

"American Buffalo" is definitely not a movie for everyone. A downer in every sense, it portrays three pitiful characters with nowhere to go in life. I guess that overall, there's little to be said about the movie. It's little more than a way to pass time. The whole thing has the distinct feel of a play (it all happens pretty much in one room), but Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz and Sean Nelson have little to do here. Still, it might make you ponder your own direction in life.I have to wonder about that coin featuring the buffalo. When you think about it, that coin went the way of the buffalo. Maybe I'm the only person who notices that.

Mamet's plays are usually more interesting than this one. Take OLEANNA for example. Here we've got these 2 guys and a black boy, obvious losers from the start, who plan to burgle the house of a customer to retrieve a valuable coin. This was sold to him at what they now consider too low a price. But all they do is talk, and sometimes get a little violent with each other, especially with the black kid who seems to be double crossing them. What is Mamet's purpose in all this? Is it his idea of a "film noir"? These guys are certainly losers, a prime requirement of that genre, but this play, and the film, is rather tedious despite the good cast work. I am an enthusiastic Mamet fan usually, but this one rather lost me. Incidentally, the only "buffalo" nickel worth very much is the 1918 minting, with 8 stamped over the 7. In the 1960's it was listing at $160 in "fine" condition.