American Buffalo (1996)
A film review by Dave Cowen
Copyright 1996 Dave Cowen
The last two films by David Mamet, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS and OLEANNA, have both had titles that seem to have little to do with the plot at hand, but are instead obscure or cunning references. That's why, upon watching AMERICAN BUFFALO, I was very surprised to see that most of the movie's plot and events are given away by the title. The word buffalo doesn't just have meaning as a noun, but also a more obscure meaning as a verb, to loosely describe the process of trying to butt one's way into a situation to keep a person from acheiving their goals or desires.
The three central characters of AMERICAN BUFFALO, Don (Dennis Franz), Teach (Dustin Hoffman) and Bobby (Sean Nelson) play havok with each other's lives in the fashion outlined above. Don owns an antique shop that seems to have quite a bit of stock but little that is saleable. Teach seems down and out, griping about a relationship and spending his day at Don's. Bobby is a young boy who hangs out at Don's shop to make some cash. The three form allegiances between each other which change rapidly: Don could be defending the actions of Bobby one minute, and then scorning him the other... with Teach switching from being critical to being supportive of the young boy in the same amount of time. The film takes a slice of one day in the life of these three, as a plan to steal an American buffalo nickel develops, sours, and does each of the three a lot more harm to each of them than good.
Of the three actors who make up AMERICAN BUFFALO, only Dennis Franz seems comfortable with Mamet's fragmented, repetitive dialogue. Franz plays Don with conviction, and the viewer is able to understand his motivations when aligning himself either with or against the Teach and Bobby characters. Dustin Hoffman overplays Teach to a ridiculous degree, often giving Mamet's dialogue a kind of oratory bravado that destroys the rhythm of the text, and Sean Nelson seems confused not only as to the motivations of the character of Bobby, but also as to the rythym of the dialogue.
Despite the surprisingly poor acting, AMERICAN BUFFALO is still of value. Mamet's plays are fun-house mirrors of real-life confrontations, distorting the way we speak and the way we act into hyper, inarticulate overblown battles of misunderstanding: the way men struggle to desperately keep control of a situation they're in is exaggerated in a Mamet script but ultimately based in reality. The character of Teach speaks with a sense of dogma, as if everthing he says is absolutely correct even when the logic is frayed, and Bobby comes off as threatening or confusing even when he's acting with the best of intentions, traits which serve to mean more in a confrontation than facts or evidence. Mamet's stories are the perfect glimpse into seemingly petty arguments which develop into life or death struggles -- similar to the worst of the arguments that occur in real life -- and the consequences of the way that men and women deliberately mislead each other to gain control of power, or wealth, or money. It's a pity that AMERICAN BUFFALO wasn't able to explore these issues without a brand of acting which buffalos the message of the film as much as the three characters buffalo each other.
-- signed: ESCHATFISCHE, david h t t p : / /w w w . f i s c h e . c o m (esch@fische.com) ------------------------------------------------------
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