Buffalo '66
Buffalo '66
R | 26 June 1998 (USA)
Buffalo '66 Trailers

Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.

Reviews
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Possible minimal spoilers.I attempted to watch this based on the 7.5 score it received here on IMDb. I can only guess that the majority of the high ratings are from friends and family of the cast and crew, because this film was so bad I didn't make it through thirty minutes before I shut it off. The direction is terrible; I felt like I was watching the film project of a film student who decided on a whim to become a filmmaker and then failed the class, deservedly. The odd overlays and cuts reek of amateur filmmaking. I didn't like anything about the film from the moment it started, aside from the odd clothing choice of Christina Ricci's character, who was in a dance class wearing what doesn't seem to me like clothing someone would be wearing in dance class, especially someone as busty as Christina. The film should've been over as soon as it started, because she had multiple chances when they first got into the car to just lock Gallo's character out and drive off. The car was already running and he got out of the car twice (I believe, maybe 3 times)before her in the parking lot. It's not like he even had a gun or gave her reason to believe he did. She simply could've locked the door, slid over and drove away. The worst he could've done was punch the car's glass. Then he gets out and goes across the street to void his bladder and she just sits and waits. I could understand if her character was mentally challenged, but what person of average intelligence wouldn't have driven off? Personally, I'd have run him down first. A ten year old child would have the sense to lock the doors and drive away, yet somehow Ricci's character didn't. There wasn't even anything likable about the characters. Gallow's character is so unlikable and unintelligent that I struggled to wait as long as I did to shut the film off. His parents have the personalities of stones. I realize that this is a black comedy, but the few areas I detected as being intended as funny simply were not. What little dialogue there is in the portion I sat through is terrible. I'm angry that I wasted a rental on this. This is only my opinion.

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SnoopyStyle

Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) is bitter and angry after five years in prison. He gets released, looking for a place to pee and kidnaps tap dancing student Layla (Christina Ricci). He had lied to his parents (Ben Gazzara, Anjelica Huston) that he's been married while away with a government job. She has to be his pretend wife Wendy Balsam. He is severely damaged and she's oddly interested in him. Billy had put $10k on Buffalo to win but the kicker Scott Wood misses the game winning field goal. Billy vows to kill him. His friend Goon (Kevin Corrigan) claims that Scott now owns a strip club. Billy and Layla bump into the real Wendy Balsam (Rosanna Arquette) who Billy had a crush on. Billy is a really annoying jerk. A few times, I almost laugh but mostly, he is really really annoying. I like the imaginative visual style in this indie but I really can't stand Billy. It's a good performance from Gallo. His character shows more vulnerability later on but his defensiveness is also very pathetic. The words too-good-for-him keep coming to mind. It's not good chemistry as much as morbid fascination with their relationship.

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cbockiii

Almost every sentence that comes out of Vincent Gallo's mouth makes me laugh. He says terrible things in his movies and in interviews, but he's one of the most interesting people in show business.Every actor in this movie did a super job. Gallo, Christina Ricci, Mickey Rourke, Ben Gazarra, Anjelica Huston, Goon... the list goes on. How much of it was because of Gallo's direction, I don't know, but I loved every minute of it.You can imagine the hilarity in an innocent, kind woman falling for a guy who is a miserable jerk. She never gives up, and the audience reaps the rewards of that. He's a jerk to his family, he's a jerk to his friends and he's a jerk to her. And all of it is hilarious.

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jimbo-53-186511

I'm totally shocked that at the time of writing this review that this film has an average IMDb user rating of 7.3. Huh?? I really can't understand what the majority of people see in this film. Basically, Billy Brown (Gallo) is released from jail for a crime he didn't commit and is intent on getting revenge on the person responsible for putting him in jail. Before he sets out on getting his vengeance, he kidnaps Layla (Ricci) after telling his parents that she is his wife - this is something that he had been lying to them about whilst he was inside. He persuades Layla to go along with his lie and tell them how brilliant he is and how much she loves him etc. After this unnecessary filler, we get a little plot development as Billy makes a call to his prison friend called Goon to try and track down the whereabouts of the person he holds responsible for him being sent to prison. The rest of the film is basically Billy trying to track down the person he holds responsible for him being sent to prison.The main problems with Buffalo 66 (and believe me there are many) is that there are too many things that didn't make any sense or that weren't believable, Like what was the purpose of taking Layla back to his parents house? They didn't stay there, they didn't go there for money. Billy seemed to want them to think he had a wife for some reason. Also Layla had many opportunities to escape from Billy, but chose not to - this is a man that threatened her and was generally nasty to her, but yet she didn't want to leave him. Perhaps this is because she was a bit naive and perhaps she felt she could change him etc, but to me it all seemed a bit phony.The main plot itself was also quite absurd. In a nutshell, Billy bet $10,000 on the Buffalos winning a Superbowl game, but the game is lost due to a missed kick by Scott Woods. Therefore Billy loses the bet, but doesn't have the $10,000 dollars to pay the bookie. So the bookie (played with icy coolness by Mickey Rourke in the 5 minutes or so that he was on screen) tells Billy that the only way he can settle his debt is to testify to a crime that he didn't commit and let the guilty party go free - which he does and gets sentenced to 5 years. He then seeks revenge on Woods for missing the kick and making him lose the bet and for losing 5 years of his life in jail - he also believes that Woods was paid to throw the game. OK - a couple of things; 1) Billy shouldn't have bet $10,000 dollars if he didn't have the money to lose. 2) Why would he only target Woods when Rourke's character was ultimately responsible for sending him to jail? The above reasons make the whole revenge element seem rather flawed.Aside from script issues, the film was also boring and just seemed to drag on and there were many instances where there was just dialogue (most of which was uninteresting) with little to no plot development. The film also lacked any kind of suspense or tension. Also what was the need in Gallo repeating nearly every sentence twice? I realise that this can make characters seem menacing (which it does to an extent), but not in every single sentence - that to me was just overkill.The only positives I can really draw from Buffalo 66 was Gallo's performance (apart from when he was saying his sentences twice). He has a naturally menacing look about him and that helped in making him come across as 'convincing' in his role. Ricci was also good as his 'naive' pretend wife - she was really good at portraying a 'naive' innocent woman who wanted to do all she could to try and appease Billy. The direction and camera work were also pretty good (particularly towards the start of the film).I may have slightly forgiven the dodgy script and mind numbingly boring majority of the film if it would have at least had a good ending, but Gallo doesn't even manage to get that right. I understand the point that Gallo was trying to make about 'choices' but to me Billy's U-turn came out of nowhere and seemingly without any reason - considering how obnoxious he was throughout the entirety of the film.This was an astoundingly bad film which was only saved slightly by the 2 lead performances and fairly good direction, but I still wouldn't waste your time watching it.

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