Customer Reviews

Buffalo Soldiers

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As with all good films, if you're looking to see them at the local Megaplex, you will be sorely disappointed most of the time. If they are there at all, you had better be quick about it and see it in the first week or so, because they most likely will be out as soon as the first weekend numbers are out, shunted aside to make room for such spectacular cinematic jewels as Cheaper by the Dozen and Fantastic Four.....(exasperated sigh).

Every now and again, though, you get treated to a movie which hits all the right notes and is available in a place with stadium seating. I was fortunate that in seeing the movie Buffalo Soldiers, I got to have my cake and eat it too.

Buffalo Soldiers is a biting satire of the US military which takes place on an American base in Germany at the twilight of the Cold War. The protagonist of the movie, played expertly by Joaquin Phoenix, is only viewed as such by the audience due to the utter incompetence or complete lack of morality of his fellow soldiers.

In truth, he is nothing more than a contemptible cad, thief, and opportunistic prick. However, he does have a streak of innocence and a superlative intelligence that makes him an intriguing and, amazingly, sympathetic character. He is a petty criminal who was hornswaggled into joining the military in lieu of jailtime (and who amongst us would not take this deal ourselves? Honestly. I'm keeping my ass to myself and myself only...LOL) and is passive-aggressively taking his frustration out on it by operating and profiting from an illicit theft ring that deals in anything from weapons caches to cleaning detergents.

He meets his match, both personally and professionally, when he gets a new CO, who's daughter he falls in love with. Slowly, as in all movies of this sort, his morality awakens within him and he attempts to straighten out and fly right.

That part is handled in the conventional and pat way that movies always handle such transformations when there is a two-hour time limit, and no reality to the situation. However, the acting, cinematography and subplots woven around the main story (especially the one involving a young informant and a gang of thugs), make for an interesting and fulfilling experience that kept me riveted until the very end.

Leaving the theatre, I though to myself "Now, what was such a fine movie as this doing in a Megaplex like this?". And then it hit me, this is an anti-US-military movie and I'm in Canada, where this sort of view holds a lot of sway and is very popular, to my dismay. So, while this movie works on an artistic level, I must say that the sentiment and arguments that it attempted to promulgate are as devoid of reality as any I have seen in a long time. Sure, any army has criminals in its midst. But, in my experience(and I lived for many years in what is essentially a war state, Israel), the vast majority of military folk are just like anyone else. Honest, hardworking, and trustworthy. I just hope people keep this in mind as they watch this film.

And a fine film it is. Enjoy.

This movie is too funny

Go buy it and don't miss out

Buffalo soldiers shoulda been in theaters but bob and harvey weinstein screwed the pooch again and sent it direct to dvd. They wussied out because of the war just starting,and didnt want to hurt the cash flow.But now the same two guys proudly bring you fahrenheit 9/11.The only people who might be offended by this great movie are the ones who think stuff like that would Never happen.DONT MISS THIS EXCELLENT GEM.

Thank god for a film that satarises the army, not in a Sgt Bilko way either. I hope it rattles middle America and the current occupants of the oval office.
Joaqin Phoneix is a great anti hero and the always brillant Ed Harris is great as an inept general.

Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachin Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army,who considers himself an entrepreneur and pulls off an outrageous drug-making scam to enrich himself (he drives a Mercedes) and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played with verve by Anna Paquin. He exchanges a captured arms shipment for the basic ingredients of street drugs, which he then boils down into a more saleable form using 1000 gallons of requisitioned Mop-and-Glo as a solvent, at least this is my understanding. Sargeants Ed Harris and Scott Glenn basically live up to their predecessors' comedic heights, though the film never quite reaches the level of slapstick humour, unless you consider a gas station explosion or a laboratory explosion to be slapstick humour. Some wag might consider Anna Paquin's face to be somewhat cartoonish. Still, for the most part, the film is filled with plenty of gags and worth the rental price, and Phoenix basically succeeds in his Gomer Pyle-like role. The first "gag" involves an enlisted man who dies after hitting his head on the corner of a table during a game of indoor football, and it is up to the Sargeant to describe to his relatives how he died while serving his country.

Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachim Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army,who pulls off an outrageous scam to enrich himself and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played by Anna Pacquin. Unfortunately, possibly because neither Ed Harris nor Scott Glenn can consistently sustain the comedic levels of Phil Silvers or the drill sargeant in Pyle, this film at times cannot decide if its comedy or drama. Still, for the most part, the film is hilarious and well worth the rental price.

Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachim Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army, pulls off an outrageous scam to enrich himself and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played by Anna Pacquin. Unfortunately, possibly because neither Ed Harris nor Scott Glenn can consistently sustain the comedic levels of Phil Silvers or the drill sargeant in Pyle, this film at times cannot decide if its comedy or drama. Still, for the most part, the film is hilarious and well worth the rental price.

The coolest movie would be a documentary on how a script like this made it to production. It is so cynical and downbeat that I really can't believe the story got anywhere near money. Just when you're about to believe that nothing but the safest kind of crap (I thought "Narc" was totally safe) gets made anymore, a movie like "Buffalo Soldiers" gets released--albeit three years after completion--to give you some hope that all is not lost in movie land...maybe.

Having been a popular novel always helps and-- the promise of a good cast--I'm just guessing here... but STILL!

Alas, nobody'll rent it but the hip and the flip and some teenybopper fans of whats-his-face with the lip scar who won't make it through the whole film and will whip out "Gladiator" instead and get their rocks off to the ubiquitoous family values theme barely concealed therin (I shall see my family again!) (yawn).

Four stars for falling back on slapstick drug humour and for having the relationship "work out" (yawn again).

Although the opening shot of "Buffalo Soldiers" echoes the most famous image from "Dr Strangelove," the real pedigree for this military satire lies in those twin hits from 1970, "MASH" and "Catch-22." "Buffalo Soldiers" presents us with an army corps composed almost exclusively of drug users, narcotics dealers, bureaucratic bunglers and traffickers in stolen merchandise. The prime culprit is battalion secretary Ray Elwood, the opportunist supreme who knows all the angles and can make the system work to his own benefit and advantage. A criminal who was given service in the military over time in prison, Elwood has simply transferred all his illegal activities to the realm of army base life. One day, however, Elwood meets his match in the form of one Sergeant Lee (the leathery Scott Glenn), a gruff no-nonsense commander, new to this German base, who is on to Elwood's antics and is determined to make life a living hell for him.

"Buffalo Soldiers" is a gutsy film in that it dares to take on a sacred cow institution and paint it in an unflattering light. It is also willing to present us with a protagonist who has few, if any, redeeming qualities as a human being (though he does radiate glimmers of decency, at times, albeit not very convincing ones). These are the film's two strongest virtues, yet they are also, paradoxically, its two greatest weaknesses. Despite Joaquin Phoenix's superb, energetic performance in the role, Elwood just does not grab the viewer's sympathy in the way that, say, Hawkeye and Yossarrian do in "MASH" and "Catch-22" respectively. Those characters could be shrewdly, cynically humorous about the flaws and hypocrisy in the military establishment, yet could still value what was good in the institution itself and the grunts who made up its ranks. The problem with Elwood is that he is seen far more as the rule rather than the exception in the world scenarists Eric Weiss, Nora Maccoby and writer/director Gregor Jordan have created. The film, though it obviously has valid points to make, feels so unbalanced in its approach that it ends up weakening its own moral case. It's true that the other two films took place in a wartime setting and "Buffalo Soldiers" is set in peacetime 1989, but it still could use a bit more equity in its portrayal.

All this wouldn't matter so much if the film displayed a finer sense of humor and a firmer grasp of tone, which ranges all the way from dead seriousness to cartoon-like caricature and slapstick. There are a few deft and witty moments in the film, but they just don't come often enough to lift the comedy too far above the ordinary.

Maybe "MASH" and "Catch-22" were more acceptable as satires because they weren't targeting just the military but the human propensity for war in general. With no war operating in its background, "Buffalo Soldiers" seems to exist in a sort of satirical vacuum - making it, in the long run, a cynical exercise oddly devoid of relevance and point.

It is always the indie flicks that end up in your DVD collection because, goddamn, for once we have an interesting film. With the advent of 9/11 this film did have to wait, but with the current animosity towards ol' Dubya Bush, this film couldn't be more pertinent. What we have to remember is the hidden talent of Joaquin Phoenix, he has many a film under his belt, [Return to Paradise, Signs, Parenthood] and this is another career milestone. Watch this movie and ENJOY, you wont find another like it. It also helps if you've had family in the forces during the eighties. Faulklands...what a waste of time.