I guess my introduction to David Mamet, "Glenngary Glen Ross," was so monumental that not other work by him will ever live up to it. Of course, I haven't seen all of his work. But here, as a scripter working from his own stage play, he doesn't offer us anything monumental.

This piece, directed by Michael Corrente, concerns three men. Dennis Franz plays an owner of a second-hand shop. He sets up a robbery with a local boy, played by Sean Nelson, only to find his other friend become an interloper and take the job away from the youngster. This is Dustin Hoffman as Teach. He talks Franz out of using the boy under the guise that he can do the job more professionally.

The dynamics here are really between Franz's calm and thoughtful store owner and Hoffman's erratic and neurotic street hustler. Hoffman's character is really unenjoyable. We don't want to spend any time with him. Yet we understand that he has a relationship with Franz and that it has lasted several years. At least, we see why Franz tolerates him; They have history. But Franz is hardly likeable either. His justification for pulling of this "job," this robbery, is hardly admirable. It's spiteful and stupid. Nelson, meanwhile, is the only likable character. His neophyte hustler offers us the only relief from the turgid and rather spiteful drama that evolves. Eventually, however, he is dragged down in the plot as well. Things are never what they seem.

Mamet is trying to say something about the nature of friendship; about trust, money, bullshit, business and Main Street economics but it doesn't really fly. Maybe I'm just too thick to understand all of what Mamet is trying to say here. Whatever he's saying, it isn't really that clear cut, nor is it interesting. There are long soliloquys about all of these subjects but they never really add up to anything. Mamet never really seems to tie it all together. It seems as if he is more interested in creating plot twists and proving his theorem that nothing is what it seems than he is in making a coherent plot and theme.

Then again, maybe it's the actors. Franz and Hoffman are not likeable here. They do have chemistry but who wants to spend 87 minutes with characters that they don't like. Corrente's direction doesn't help. He really doesn't add much here. He simply films this much the way someone would film a stage play opened up slightly for the screen. It's not claustrophobic enough, which would at least be something. It's not interesting or unique cinematically in any way. It simply lays there and hopes to unfold. There's not enough tension, not enough drama. The director sits back and hopes that the script and the actors will make the film work for him. They barely succeed.

"American Buffalo" isn't a bad film. Mamet's script is beautiful poetry even when it doesn't add up to anything. We just wish that these characters were different people. We wish the plot wasn't about a man who wants to commit a robbery basically because of hurt feelings and spite. We wish we understood more clearly what Mamet was trying to say.

Note:

Music by Thomas Newman.

(Review written in 1997)

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