Buffalo Soldiers: Review By slysnide

I saw this a month ago while on the verge of a fever, yet still was able to stay up through this great movie.

It takes place on an American base in West Germany, 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ray Elwood is a convict who chooses 3yrs in the military over 6 months in prison, and would rather have taken prison. To pass by the miserable time of base life, Ray and his close friends finds a way to convert morphine and other anesthetic components from the medical facilities into heroin that they sell to fellow troops and drugees off base. However, when the new base Sargeant, Lee takes away all of Ray's clear contraband as designated by base rules, which includes losing his TV, couch, and posters, Ray fires back by taking a liking to Lee's daughter Robyn, and what starts as a simple revenge stint turns into something a bit more real than Ray expected.

Meanwhile, Ray's heroin kills two soldiers that are driving a tank, and stupidly crash it at a gas station, causing the station, and the tank to explode. The journey of the high soldiers leading up to the crash is quite funny. But when the crash occurs, it also kills a couple soldiers that were in charge of a truck full of U.S. weapons. Mainly guns and munitions. Ray, Garcia, and Stoney come upon the disaster, steal the truck without reporting the incident, and then take the weapons to storage on a nuclear storage base for sale on the German Black Market. However, when the weapons mysteriously disappear from storage, Ray must make ends meet by cooking a ridiculous amount of kilos of heroin that equals the price of the weapons sale...and perhaps enough for some profit on the flipside.

So those are basically the two storylines: 1 follows Ray's blooming friendship with Robyn Lee which infuriates the Sargeant, and the other follows the consequences of selling U.S. weapons to the German Black Market without being able to make ends meet.

While not engaged in illegal activities, Ray kisses up to Colonel Berman who always asks Ray for advice, expecting him to always reply positively, but he doesn't get upset if Ray replies otherwise, as Ray does his best to be Colonel Berman's number one guy to go to when things are down. (I'm sure you've all seen a scenario like this before). What Berman doesn't know of course is that A) Ray's the most criminal soldier on the base for his heroin activities, and B) Ray's been sleeping with Berman's wife. However, Ray's off handed suggestions to make Colonel Berman's life with his superiors better complicates his scheme to cook up the heroin for the German Black Market. So in a way, everything that Ray does has it's consequences, such as Sargeant Lee responding to Ray's relationship with his daughter by having the troops shoot up his beamer, or Berman's training exercise delaying the cooking of the heroin. And not to mention the straight edged teacher's pet Knoll who Sargeant Lee designates as Ray's new roomate, which further complicates his heroin cooking.

The explosions and other special effetcs were done as good as one would expect, and added to the eye candy element of the movie.

The funniest scene in the film for me was when the two high soldiers take a joy ride in the tank. And the whole concept of Sargeant Lee beating up on Ray just cuz he was seeing his daughter seemed rather trivial on his part, which made it funnier for me, but the ending provides a small twist in how you find out about the other reason that Sargeant Lee doesn't like Ray. And there's another twist at the same time. You'll know it when you see it.

Some of the scenes are funny, such as the way that Berman writes off an extremely pitiful 'friendly fire' death by making up bullsh*t, or how Sargent Lee jests African American soldier Stoney for having to dress in a Confederate uniform at a dinner party, and the way that Sargeant Lee seems to be the balls of the base opposite Colonel Berman's nievity creates an odd contrast. All of these add to the success of this movie...for me at least.

Unfortunetly, it wasn't laugh out loud funny, and the relationship storyline overtakes the other, more interesting one which could have been expanded upon had the filmmakers not focused on making this some kind of weird romance comedy. But the acting was good which makes up for part of it. Had they just not written ANY romance into the story it'd have been quite more interesting. But oh well, it ain't my movie.

Actors & Actresses:

1. Joaquin Phoenix as Ray Elwood (Gladiator/Signs/The Village/Ladder 49/Walk The Line/We Own The Night/Two Lovers)

2. Anna Paquin as Robyn Lee (X-Men/Almost Famous/Finding Forrester/25th Hour/Darkness/X2/X-Men: The Last Stand/Blue State)

3. Ed Harris as Colonel Berman (Apollo 13/The Rock/The Truman Show/Enemy At The Gates/A Beautiful Mind/The Hours/Radio/A History Of Violence/Cleaner/Gone Baby Gone/National Treasure: Book Of Secrets/Appaloosa)

4. Scott Glenn as Sargeant Lee (The Hunt For Red October/The Silence Of The Lambs/Backdraft/Courage Under Fire/The Virgin Suicides/Vertical Limit/Training Day/The Shipping News/Homeland Security/Nights In Rodanthe/W)

5. Michael Pena as Garcia (Gone In Sixty Seconds/Million Dollar Baby/Crash/Little Athens/Sueno/Fifty Pills/Babel/World Trade Center/Lions For Lambs/The Lucky Ones)

6. Leon as Stoney (All The Right Moves/The Flamingo Kid/Cliffhanger/Cool Runnings/Above The Rim/Once Upon A Time...When We Were Colored/Waiting To Exhale/Spirit Lost/Pure Danger/The Price Of Kissing/Side Streets/Bats/Ali/Four Faces Of God/Get Rich Or Die Tryin'/Capers/Cover)

7. Elizabeth McGovern as Mrs. Berman (The Favor/Wings of Courage/The Wings of the Dove/Manila/House of Mirth/The Truth/Inconcievable)

8. Gabriel Mann as Knoll (The Bourne Supremacy/Drum/A Lot Like Love/Don't Come Knocking/The Big Empty/Piggy Banks/Love And Mary)

8.

The Director:

Gregor Jordan (Swinger/Stitched/Two Hands/Ned Kelly/The Informers/Unthinkable)

The Writers:

1. Gregor Jordan {See Above}

2. Robert O'Conner III (Novel: Buffalo Soldiers)