American Buffalo

I am tempted to describe the plot of American Buffalo for you but I fear that the description won’t do it justice and will ruin your experience if you ever give this a try. 

A lot of the fun, in a work like this, is coming to terms with the plot through what is revealed in the dialogue.

So rather than walk that road let us try another path. This is a David Mamet play turned into a movie about three guys discussing a burglary. 

At this point you either know who David Mamet is and you are in or you know who he is and you are all the way out. 

But suppose you don’t know Mamet.

I can say some things. Yes there are things that can be said. 

He is a playwright and director who won a Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glenn Ross. That play, later turned into a firecracker of a movie, was about real estate dealers trying to con and or seduce their customers and each other. It is colloquially known as Death of a Fucking Salesman and it is one of the greatest plays ever written. 

Mamet’s character speak in particular ways. Ways that could shock you. Yes, they could be shocking. Ways that are cryptic and almost always highly entertaining. 

A lot of folks can make a movie with billions in special effects or millions in interesting shots and movie violence. I love those too. But only a handful of great writers can take a couple of great actors and turn an hour and a half of discussions and dissertations into an entertaining work of art.

Ok, let me say this. I will say just this much and no more about the plot.

American Buffalo is about Don, small time businessman/low level criminal, who is worried he was taken for a fool by one of his customers. 

He enlists his gopher Bobby to help him plan a robbery and his friend Teach to carry it out. 

Don and Teach spend their day in what might be best described as a verbal boxing match and then as the robbery grows closer the tension and suspicion grow beyond reason and it all leads to a … well that would be telling wouldn’t it. 

Anyway, if you are a particular kind of movie viewer who can live within the confines of what amounts to a stage play filmed with movie cameras then this is for you.

If you need more than that visually, or action set pieces, then it’s ok, I give you permission to move along. 

Finally, I should note that there are three amazing actors (and only three) in this thing. Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz, and Sean Nelson. The quality of the work is not in question. 

I am, sad, just a bit knowing that Al Pacino played Teach for years on Broadway but didn’t have time in his schedule for it when the producers got ready to make the film. 

Now, should they have waited for Pacino? I know my answer. 

But as a Mamet character might say, “friendship, loyalty, these are nice things. Yes. But we are men of business. We do not wait.”