Buffalo Soldiers

I was in the Army stationed in Germany from 1986 through 1989 and there was a day that we called "Black Sunday" when several people on our post were discovered to have a drug ring going on. The people implicated and taken away by MPs that day included several officers. My post was known for being able to get everything from hooker to heroin ON POST! Our Sgt,. Major walked around with an ax handle tethered to his wrist because he had been jumped at night so many times! So this movie is not a joke and is very close to the truth. There was even a second lieutenant that was murdered by putting him in a wall locker and pushing it out of a third story window. There was also times when you could not walk past some buildings or windows if you were white or black depending on which window and what color you were because of racial tensions, sometimes you might be hit by a beer bottle by someone of the opposite color. This movie very closely depicts what it was like vbeing a soldier in the US Army staioned in West Germany at the end of the cold war. Hooah!

American directors tend to glorify their war movies by adding a lot of heroism and false American nationalism. Buffalo Soldiers is a nice change on these kind of movies. It tells the story of a group of American soldiers so thoroughly bored that they kill time by smuggling drugs, drinking booze and fighting each other. It kinda reminds me of my father's stories of his short yet turbulent time in the army. He keeps on telling about all the wrong things they did to have a bit of fun in their forced presence in these days.

The movie doesn't really have a grand message to deliver to its audience, but it is most definitely good for a few laughs. And Joaquin Phoenix shows a bit of the strong charisma he has in store for us in later movies ( Walk the line- the Johnny Cash biography- as his strongest one )

It's difficult to sum Buffalo Soldiers up. On one hand you have the comedy aspect, particularly from Ed Harris, on another you have the romance, from Anna Paquin, and then you have the violence...from just about everybody. The story is set in Germany, 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and is based on a unit of the US army called the Buffalo infantry (Or something) who aren't exactly above board and legal with what they get up to. Truth is this movie really isn't to do with army combat, it's to do with the corruption of the vast majority of the soldiers who'll do anything to make a buck, such as drugs and weapons.

Dark comedy in many places, it seems many have taken great offence to Hollywood's portrayal of their 'heroes' - for goodness' sake don't take it so seriously. I'm jewish and don't care when I see my religion mocked on screen. So why should anyone be offended by this?

It's funny in places, dramatic in places, dark in places and risque. But what it is is a good movie which *will* entertain.

This is my favourite film of 2003. Why they waited two years before releasing this superb movie in the UK is anyone's guess - although it may have had something to do with its total lack of respect for the U.S. Army. I'm not sure this would have went down too well in the aftermath of 9/11. Regardless, Buffalo Soldiers is an absolute gem. It is nasty, intelligent and hilarious. It is critical of American values, specifically capitalism in the 80s and it takes no prisoners. This is an outsider's perspective on the American occupation of West Germany in 1989: Jordan is Australian and as a result he brings an Australian aesthetic to his work. But it is also a tender film that is structured around a touching central romance between Elwood and Robyn. I love their scenes in the pool, it is such a warm, intimate location - a perfect setting for the heart of an otherwise deeply cynical film. Jordan is a director of considerable talent and Buffalo Soldiers is magnificent.

Some films just suffer from bad luck, and `Buffalo Soldiers' is one of them. Not that the movie is all that bad, nor all that terrific; it just deals with a subject that Americans might not be comfortable about today: a less-than-glowing depiction of the American military.

The film made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival, three days before Sept 11, 2001, under great fanfare. It was billed as being a dark satirical look at the military, but after the attacks on 9/11, its future was buried. Now, almost two years later, `Buffalo Soldiers' is finally being released, but it's not clear that the climate will be any more accommodating.

The movie starts by presenting a criminal subculture operating among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall. The satirical billing is merely a backdrop for the film, and it does present just about everyone rather hyperbolically. Joaquin Phoenix plays Ray Elwood, a la Radar O'Reilly from MASH. He is the company clerk for a U.S. supply base, making most decisions for his oblivious colonel to rubber stamp. Like Milo Minderbinder from Catch-22, he goes about his normal routine of making money and duping the system, but in this case, Elwood is a small-time drug dealer who sometimes dabbles in black market booty. Things turn on him quickly when he happens across some heavy weaponry, and his plan for unloading the equipment puts him way over his head, getting him into far more trouble than what he can handle as the lightweight and inexperienced paper-pusher that he is. By the time the plot line is established, the backdrop of satire is abandoned, witty observations undone, and philosophical quips erased.

Indeed, the true essence of the film lies beyond the plot, but it doesn't go as far as it tagline philosophy: `Where there is peace, the warlike man attacks himself.', a quote from Nietzsche, whose keen observation was the original inspiration for the film. At most, `Buffalo Soldiers' depicts how people behave when they get in over their heads, and only a dash of commentary on anything military or philosophical.

As for the controversy around American soldiers doing bad things, it would be a stretch to feel this is commentary on the good ol' US of A. Only those looking to pick a fight would find any form of offense or unpatriotic flavor to this film. Still, all one has to do is suggest the notion, and people will simply adopt that view anyway, regardless of what's on screen. Ironically, that's the movie's fault, not the public's. If the movie were better at delivering a more profound message - one that it clearly wanted to make - or if the story line were multi-dimensional, rather than a straightforward crime caper, people would easily overlook its superficial qualities. To be sure, Joaquin Phoenix does an excellent job at portraying a frat boy who doesn't take the army seriously, and who learns the ropes the hard way, just before he gets busted down to hell.

In the end, `Buffalo Solders' is entertaining, has a splash of romance, and is certainly a good enough movie in its own right, but is not the cynical, anti-war, anti-patriotic movie that people will be told it is. Oddly, the film's perception may be disproportionately diminished and reviewed poorly because of the attention it's getting, but it doesn't deserve undue praise either.