American Buffalo (film)
| American Buffalo | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michael Corrente |
| Produced by | Gregory Mosher |
| Written by | David Mamet |
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| Music by | Thomas Newman |
| Cinematography | Richard Crudo |
| Edited by | Kate Sanford |
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Production
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| Distributed by | The Samuel Goldwyn Company |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $632,054 |
American Buffalo is a 1996 British-American drama film directed by Michael Corrente and starring Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz, and Sean Nelson, the only members of the cast. The film is based on David Mamet's 1975 play of the same name.
The film was produced by Gregory Mosher, who was also responsible for directing the theatrical version of American Buffalo.
Donny runs a junk shop in a city's sparsely populated and decaying neighborhood. Teach, who has no visible means of support, spends many hours each 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 can't go through with it because he is in the hospital. Donny distrusts what he is hearing and is unable to locate the man in the hospital, whereupon Teach angrily turns on Bobby.
Al Pacino, who originated the role of Teach on Broadway, 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.
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."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."
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