6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
This story is about three men who want to aspire to more than what and who they are. 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.
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz, Sean Nelson (I)Drama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There’s a rhythm to the dialogue of David Mamet, a syncopated momentum that at times makes what is said somehow less important than how it’s said. Mamet often arrives at his themes almost discursively, allowing his characters to soliloquize at length about seemingly irrelevant subjects, while a subtext slowly but surely forms for the patient and astute viewer (and/or listener). Monologue and/or dialogue as an assault tactic is firmly on display throughout the film version of American Buffalo, the play which helped to but Mamet on the map back in the 1970s, but which took two decades or so to matriculate to the screen. A “three hander” (and really in essence a “two hander”) that in its stage version is intentionally claustrophobic, American Buffalo would seem to have been more at home, cinematically speaking, in the independently minded decade of the seventies, rather than the somewhat more expansive, franchise driven last decade of the millennium, and that may account for a certain attrition that attends this film version. Aside from a few deliberate attempts to “open up” the proceedings, director Michael Corrente centers the production squarely on the dilapidated confines of a Chicago second hand emporium (the kind of place which euphemistically advertises “antiques”) belonging to a harried and downtrodden guy named Donny (Dennis Franz). Donny is even more harried and downtrodden than usual due to the fact that he believes he more or less gave away a valuable Buffalo nickel (hence the title of the outing), something that he’s newly sure is worth much more than the paltry sum he sold it for. Into this roiling psychological maelstrom enters Teach (Dustin Hoffman), a down on his luck street person who makes Donny’s shop his home away from homeless (so to speak).
American Buffalo is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. Elements have minor age related issues like dirt and flecks, but overall this is a nicely organic presentation, albeit one that's a bit dowdy and brown looking at times. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, director Michael Corrente and cinematographer Richard Crudo often exploit extreme close-ups (see screenshots 1 and 2), and those offer abundant detail and fine detail. Shadow detail is occasionally anemic in wider shots where some of the backgrounds of Donny's shop are swallowed in a slightly murky ambience. Grain is natural looking and presents no compression issues.
American Buffalo features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which more than capably supports the film's rapid fire dialogue, as well as the minimalist score from Thomas Newman. The soundstage is not exceptionally wide here, but with almost all of the film unfolding within the claustrophobic confines of Donny's emporium, that's not a problem. Fidelity is excellent, though dynamic range fairly narrow, on this problem free track.
American Buffalo is another field day for Mamet's patented blend of scabrous humor, potent expletive laden rants and sometimes unexpected subtexts. Hoffman, while creating a character fairly far removed from Pacino's portrayal, is viscerally intense as Teach. The film's moral compass (such as it is) is undeniably Dennis Franz, however, and his portrayal is arguably the highlight of this film version. Technical merits of this Blu-ray are generally very good, and American Buffalo comes Recommended.
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