BUFFALO ‘66 by DeWyNGaLe Rating: B
Buffalo ‘66 is a very rarely known movie that stars Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci. Gallo plays a very troubled man, who was sent to jail for gambling. Once out of jail, he must visit his parents, who he told he was married. The truth is he isn't married. To try to impress them, he kidnaps a girl (Christina Ricci) from a tap dancing class to act as his wife. The film is very cheaply made, and it shows it throughout a lot of the movie, but you don't need money to make a good film. Buffalo ‘66 doesn't always stay with the realistic concept, and sometimes goes through outrageous events.
Gallo's parents, played by Angelica Huston and Ben Gazarra, are two very strange individuals. The mother plays a football fanatic and the father plays a quiet man with odd habits. Gallo and Ricci arrive at his parent's house, and some extremely funny scenes take place within the house. Ricci's performance during the scene at Gallo's parent's home are very well done. There is constantly humor involved in the interesting dinner table scenes. The way the movie was filmed in this particular part of the movie were interesting and creative. They seemed very mediocre, but they worked out just fine.
Gallo's character is developed very well. The impression that he is very depressed and confused is very clear. Gallo gives a performance that makes you believe what the character is going through. His character goes through many, many problems, just like many people in real life. This character seemed very realistic to me. Ricci's character is funny and different. She doesn't care much that she has been kidnaped, in fact, she falls in love the man who kidnaped her! Ricci is a very wonderful actress and she is starting to get the recognition that she deserves.
Buffalo ‘66 isn't all laughs though. Many scenes are very dramatic and depressing. Gallo's character was so realistic, he was extremely disturbing. Some scenes are supposed to come off as funny, but they actually seemed sad and real to life. The film sometimes drags along, not giving much material. I really would have liked to see Gallo's parents a lot more, and I would have liked to see the characters developed more. Overall, Buffalo ‘66 isn't as good as some people put it up to be.
The Bottom Line- A few hysterical scenes save this film from sinking to the bottom.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews