“American Buffalo” (1996) is a mid-level example of the work of David Mamet, who writes the screenplay based on his 1975 stage play. I found it thoroughly watchable, driven by the performances by Dennis Franz (“NYPD Blue”) and Dustin Hoffman (“Wag the Dog”), but when it was over, I reflected on strange choices in storytelling and what’s emphasized by director Michael Corrente and editor Kate Sanford.
Junk-shop chatter
This three-man ensemble piece is helped by the evocative set design of a junk shop (where 90 percent of the action takes place) and establishing shots of a floundering business district in Pawtucket, R.I. But “American Buffalo” is mostly an excuse to kick back and enjoy acting showcases by Franz as bitter shop owner Don and Hoffman as his greasy and angry friend Teach. Sean Nelson holds his own with the two legends as teenager Bob.
Don and Teach plan to rob a coin collector in a nearby apartment who had purchased a buffalo-head nickel from the shop for $90. Don gets it in his head that it was worth way more than $90. (Although a coin price guide is a prominent prop, he never looks it up to find out if he got a bad deal, one of the film’s odd choices.)
“American Buffalo” (1996)
Director: Michael Corrente
Writer: David Mamet
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz, Sean Nelson
Don and Teach work up to deciding who will be on the robbery team, and how and when they are going to it, and a viewer absorbs their jitteriness and wavering levels of conviction with the idea. Bob is a wild card, a seemingly innocent kid who keeps asking Don for money – first for surveilling the mark, and later for his own buffalo-head nickel (the value of which they again don’t look up in the book).
Clearly not expanding much from the stage play, “American Buffalo” is a smaller movie than we might assume, arguably even missing a conclusive act. So in retrospect, it’s not about the robbery, but rather about these three people’s sad lives. We are left to mull over whether these people are truly friends, or whether they are using each other.
Likeable crooks
Also, because we see this trio and no one else, we naturally tend to go easy on them, even though they are crooks. The tone leans comedic early on, with the verbose Teach rambling on about a small slight by an acquaintance at the diner down the street while Don opens the shop. Then it gets darker and sadder as the day goes on and no one else visits the shop.
It’s odd, especially for a work by Mamet (who has expressed belief in the “Chekhov’s gun” theory of storytelling), that “American Buffalo” leaves threads unfinished. Part of the conversation between Don and Teach references a past tragedy – most likely a heist gone wrong – but it isn’t brought up again. And we get an insert shot of a sliding lock on a door, and that doesn’t play a role later on.
I had almost forgotten this 90-minute movie a few hours after watching it, and I think these threads – not merely unresolved, but also unaddressed after their introduction — are part of the reason. Still, “American Buffalo” is an enjoyable enough curiosity for fans of Franz and Hoffman, and for Mamet scholars once they’ve gotten deep into his catalog.