American Buffalo (film)

Donny runs a junk shop in a sparsely populated and decaying neighborhood. Teach, who has no visible means of support, spends many hours a day at the shop, as does Bobby, a young man who is eager to please Donny in any way he can.

Teach comes up with a scheme to rob the home of a man whose safe is said to contain rare coins. Bobby is often sent on errands for food or information. Teach's nerves are already on edge when Bobby suddenly returns to say that a third man involved in that night's robbery cannot go through with it because he is in the hospital. Donny mistrusts what he is hearing, and is unable to locate the man in the hospital, whereupon Teach angrily turns on Bobby.

• Dustin Hoffman as Teach
• Dennis Franz as Donny
• Sean Nelson as Bobby

In 1986, the Cannon Group, Inc., announced that a film adaptation was in the works. However, the film was eventually stuck in development for years.{{Cite news|date=1986-03-19|title=Cannon To Produce 'Zorba', 'Buffalo'|page=4|work=Variety}}

Al Pacino, who played the role of Teach in the 1983 Broadway revival, was the first choice to play the role in the adaptation. However, Pacino did not respond in a timely fashion, so Corrente offered the role to Dustin Hoffman. The film was shot on location in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Corrente's home town.

The film holds a score of 73% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 26 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "It lacks the dynamism of other adaptations of his work, but American Buffalo still offers the tenacious characterizations and hard-hitting dialogue that are hallmarks of David Mamet's writing."{{Cite web |title=American Buffalo |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_buffalo |access-date=2025-05-02 |website=Rotten Tomatoes |language=en}}

Stephen Holden called it an "ugly fable of American free enterprise at the bottom of the food chain", adding, "With its staccato, profanity-laced language and metaphorically potent setting, American Buffalo folds a stylized parody of American gangster movies into a bleak Samuel Beckett vision that is wide enough to accommodate many interpretations....In filming American Buffalo, Mr. Corrente has taken as conventionally naturalistic an approach as the play permits, playing down its social metaphors to concentrate on the characters' psychology."{{cite news| first=Stephen |last=Holden| author-link= Stephen Holden| title= Ratso Rizzo's Long-Lost Son| url= https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9905E2D8163AF930A2575AC0A960958260 |newspaper=The New York Times |date= September 13, 1996|access-date=September 9, 2011}}

Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a "B", saying "American Buffalo is about nothing less Mametian than commerce, friendship, betrayal, despair, and American hustle. Director Michael Corrente (Federal Hill) works at getting the story off the stage (it's set in a junk shop) by occasionally moving to an empty, decrepit city street. But mostly he just locks on to Hoffman and Franz."{{cite magazine|first=Lisa |last=Schwarzbaum| author-link= Lisa Schwarzbaum| title= American Buffalo| url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,294262,00.html | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080907074528/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,294262,00.html | url-status= dead | archive-date= 7 September 2008 | magazine=Entertainment Weekly |location=New York City|date= September 27, 1996| access-date=September 9, 2011}}

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film {{frac|2|1|2}} stars of four, saying, "It is a cliché, but true, that some plays have their real life on the stage. American Buffalo is a play like that—or, at least, it is not a play that finds its life in this movie....Because the film never really brings to life its inner secrets, it seems leisurely, and toward the end, it seems long. It doesn't have the energy or the danger of James Foley's film version of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. The language is all there, and it is a joy, but the irony is missing. Or, more precisely, the irony about the irony."{{cite news | first= Roger | last= Ebert | author-link= Roger Ebert | url= http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19960913/REVIEWS/609130301/1023 | title= American Buffalo | date= September 13, 1996 | newspaper= Chicago Sun-Times | access-date= September 9, 2011 | archive-date= 3 November 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101103013651/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19960913/REVIEWS/609130301/1023 | url-status= dead }}

Two months later, upon the film's U.K. release, Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph concluded, "The film's principal interest lies, as it always does with Mamet, in the hypnotic language; repeat your sentences about 20 times, shuffling the word order, repeat the first name of whomever you're talking to as though it were a mantra, add a judicious sprinkling of obscenities, and you've got the general idea. Franz, of television's NYPD Blue, is terrific, but Hoffman, performing in 'street' mode, complete with long greasy hair, never allows you to forget that he's reciting lines. Eventually the hypnotic repetitiveness of the language and the total lack of action did their work, and the dreaded Sandman, who hovers constantly at the shoulder of all film reviewers, paid me one of his visits."{{cite web| first=Anne |last= Billson| title= American Buffalo| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4706366/What-a-fabulous-dive.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423192813/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4706366/What-a-fabulous-dive.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=23 April 2010 | newspaper= The Daily Telegraph | location = London, England | date= 30 November 1996|access-date=9 September 2011}}

The film grossed $665,450 in the United States and Canada, and an estimated $2 million internationally.{{Mojo title|americanbuffalo}}

The score was composed and orchestrated by Thomas Newman. In addition to Newman on piano, musicians included Steve Kujala (reeds), George Doering, Bill Bernstein, Rick Cox, (guitars), Harvey Mason (drums), and Mike Fisher (percussion).{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.jots.200019244/default.html |title=American Buffalo | encyclopedia=Performing Arts Encyclopedia |year=1995 |publisher= Library of Congress| access-date= 2008-12-08}}

It was released by Varèse Sarabande, paired with Newman's work for the unrelated 1994 film Threesome (tracks 12–20).{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

;Tracks

{{div col}}

1. Buffalo Head (2:43)
2. Classical Money (1:33)
3. Bobby (:54)
4. What Kind Of This (2:10)
5. Jaw (1:11)
6. Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby (1:22)
7. King High Flush (1:01)
8. Nothing Out There - Thomas Newman and Rick Cox (1:25)
9. Chump Change (1:17)
10. The Guy (1:20)
11. Tails You Lose (2:43)
12. Different Species (:33)
13. Stranded - Bill Bernstein (1:08)
14. Threesome (2:24)
15. Post-Modern Eve (:46)
16. Doomed Relationships (1:29)
17. Sacred Vows (1:36)
18. Concupiscence (:49)
19. Leprechaun (2:03)
20. Drive Away (1:09)

{{div col end}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0115530}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|american_buffalo}}
• {{Mojo title|americanbuffalo}}
• [https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/442682/american-buffalo#overview American Buffalo] at Turner Classic Movies

{{Michael Corrente}}

{{David Mamet}}

Category:1996 films

Category:1996 drama films

Category:1996 independent films

Category:1996 LGBTQ-related films

Category:1990s American films

Category:1990s British films

Category:1990s English-language films

Category:American drama films

Category:American films based on plays

Category:American independent films

Category:American LGBTQ-related films

Category:British drama films

Category:British independent films

Category:English-language drama films

Category:English-language independent films

Category:Films based on works by David Mamet

Category:Films directed by Michael Corrente

Category:Films scored by Thomas Newman

Category:Films with screenplays by David Mamet

Category:Film4 Productions films