BUFFALO RIDER is one of those rare 'local' films made outside of Hollywood in the 1970s. This one was shot in Oregon. I always like these films as you get a nice view of rural America missing in the big studio productions. This film tells the simple story of a guy who manages to tame a wild buffalo and then uses it as his steed. The two then travel around and are involved in various escapades with wolves, bears, hunters, and folk both good and bad. There's a cute raccoon called Bandit and lots of real outdoors footage, which makes this a godsend for wildlife lovers like myself. The film is also careful to show the brutality of the great outdoors without sugar-coating the experience.

Writing a plot description for Buffalo Rider is difficult because there's really not much of a plot. A man named Jake Jones rescues a buffalo calf from coyotes and nurses it back to health. Later, for reasons known only to Jones, he decides to saddle and ride the buffalo he calls Samson. He rides around the West, saves a baby, and rides around some more. In between all of this "action", we're treated to poorly staged animal sequences that quickly turn into little more than scenes of animal cruelty. For example, we get to see what happens when you put a raccoon and a cougar on the same bit of frozen river. Or, how about putting a raccoon on a chunk of ice in a raging river just to see what happens? This is certainly what I call entertainment (please note the sarcasm). Overall, Buffalo Rider isn't very good. Because there's not plot, it's unrelentingly dull. The acting is as bad as you'll find. It's kind of bizarre to me that two members of Buffalo Rider's small cast appeared in Animal House. Weird! Also, the music is ridiculously bad, the lighting is often horrible, and the sound recording is sloppy. And there are way too many ridiculous moments in the movie. One example, while he goes off hunting, Jones leaves the baby he's rescuing in Samson's care. That's right, Samson acts as a babysitter! The narrator would have us believe that Samson understands his responsibility. Uh, whatever. If I have to note one highlight, it's easily the scene at the end where Jones rides Samson into a saloon for the final shootout with the bad guys. Finally, throughout the movie, I asked myself more than once, "Why would anyone want to ride a buffalo?" As far as I could tell, Jones has no good reason. When he found Samson, he had a perfectly good horse. As rough as riding a horse can be, it doesn't begin to compare with how uncomfortable riding a buffalo appears to be. And unlike a horse, a buffalo isn't a very dependable means of transportation. Jones is most often completely at the mercy of Samson. If Samson doesn't want to go a certain direction, he's not going in that direction. If Samson wants to stop, he stops. And there's nothing Jones can do about it. In the end, riding a buffalo isn't the brightest of ideas.

There is a maximum of1000 words that I can use to describe this film. However 100000000000 words could never do this beautiful piece of classic American cinematography justice. It literally saved my life and restored my faith in humanity. While viewing this masterfully crafted piece of storytelling brilliance, I was in constant awe of the film's life-breathing symbolism, which can only be likened to the passion of romance engulfed in a sea of melancholy emotions. The subtle, yet deep, complexity of this work leads one to ponder, and to reevaluate what it is to subsist in this idealistic bureaucracy we call life. Surely the life, and the legend of the man, nay the spirit embodied by Buffalo Jones can be considered the greatest picture portrayed on the tapestry of the camera lens, sculpted by the dreams of true visionaries. A conceptual medium of storytelling that will forever be noted as a realization of relative truths out of this faction of subjective reality we so arrogantly deem time.

I can't believe that no one has ever commented on this truly awful movie. perhaps no one except me and my cousin Ron saw this movie, which we did on a cold snowy evening in Bowling Green Kentucky in '78. I was only 12 years old and yet even at that age I knew I had witnessed one of the worst movies of all time. the scene I remember most was when our hero, the buffalo rider, parks his buffalo at the local bar and goes inside to warm up and enjoy an adult beverage. One of the local tough guys walks up to our hero and asks, "hey, is that your buffalo outside?" sort of the modern day equivalent of "hey, is that your Harley outside?" if you ever get a chance to watch this snoozer, enjoy it for the laughs and bad acting which are plentiful.