Product Details

• Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris
• Directors: Gregor Jordan
• Format: NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 5559683612

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Inviting casual comparison to Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Buffalo Soldiers is an Army-base comedy about soldiers "with nothing to kill except time." It's 1989: The Berlin Wall is falling, completing the cold war's thaw, and Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix)--a clerk with the 317th Supply Battalion, stationed in West Germany--combats boredom with a variety of black-market schemes, from cooking heroin for the base's corrupt MPs to dealing stolen arms to the highest bidder, in addition to having a shallow affair with the two-timing wife (Elizabeth McGovern) of his outgoing commander (Ed Harris). Elwood's new CO (Scott Glenn) clamps down on his illegal activities while protecting his daughter (Anna Paquin) from Elwood's advances. Fine casting and positive buzz couldn't prevent this movie's ironic fate: Acquired by Miramax one day before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Buffalo Soldiers--based on the celebrated novel by Robert O'Connor--was shelved for nearly two years, by which time this dark and defiantly amusing exercise in political incorrectness had been overshadowed by world events. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Specialist Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is having a ball. The year is 1989, the place is West Germany, and the pickings could not be riper, or easier to pluck. Elwood is the battalion clerk in an antiquated peacetime outfit, and, in the absence of combat, he devotes his skills to the black market and the heroin trade. Into this pleasant routine comes Sergeant Lee (Scott Glenn), who sees Elwood as a grifter and a slacker; Elwood, in turn, has eyes only for the sergeant's teen-age daughter (Anna Paquin). The director, Gregor Jordan, gets harsh laughs from all this mischief, but his grasp of Army life feels unstable, and Phoenix is enjoyable rather than credible in the role of a hipster Bilko. As for the casting of Ed Harris as a feeble and hapless colonel, isn't that against regulations? Too much of the second half is consumed by the nocturnal niceties of a drug plot-a pity, because a film about the joys and travails of the American military abroad could hardly be more apposite. With Elizabeth McGovern, almost unrecognizable as the colonel's wife, and a fall-down cameo for the Berlin Wall. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars London Calling, August 1, 2003

By 

Justin Miller (Hudson, OH United States) - See all my reviews

I just saw this movie at a theater in London and I heard that they are not widely releasing it in the states yet because of the situation in Iraq. All I have to say is thank God I am in London because this is one of the year's best films!! Joaquin Phoenix gives a great performance as a military screw-up and Ed Harris does an excellent job portraying the dumbest military leader ever. Anna Paquin and Scott Glenn give strong performances as well, and the script for this movie is great. If you love black comedies, and laughed at films like Very Bad Things, this is definately a movie for you. After a summer filled with terrible blockbusters like Hulk, it is nice to see a good old flick about soldiers on heroin that blow stuff up and sell Mop-N-Glow on the black market. However, I have a feeling that this film may be the next Boondock Saints, in terms of not getting the recognition that it deserves. It still gets an A+ in my book though.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dark look at US Army life in Germany in the late 1980's, April 19, 2007

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Buffalo Soldiers (DVD)

Buffalo Soldiers is the story of US Army supply clerk Ray Elwood, played by the handsome and mysterious Joaquin Phoenix. Elwood is one of those go-to-guys who can score anything you need in exchange for the right favor. He has his hands all over the supply chain, drives a sweet German sports car, and knows who to cook up a batch of heroin in spare warehouses. He's a stoic who is well-respected by his peers. He helps his goofball desk jockey boss (played by Ed Harris) keep the base in West Germany in line.

Elwood's life is thrown into personal and romantic turmoil with the arrival of Sgt. Lee (played by Scott Glenn) and his beautiful daughter (Anna Paquin). Sgt. Lee has a personal goal of cleaning house and exposing Elwood's dabblings in the black market. Elwood, of course, decides to antagonize Lee by dating his daughter, and then he falls hard for the young lady. The movie is a dark game of cat and mouse between Lee and Elwood, with the base commander bumbling around in the background in truly comedic fashion. With a few healthy plot twists and elements of both satire and horror, Buffalo Soldiers is a movie to catch on DVD for anyone who likes dark drama/comedy in which the viewer ends up rooting for a handsome "bad guy." Fans of this movie should check out Wonderland and Lord of War.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's not a satire, June 10, 2006

By 

M. Dalton "big-dummy" (New Orleans, Louisiana United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Buffalo Soldiers (DVD)

I was in the Army in the same time period and almost the exact same area where this film was portrayed, in a little town called Neu Ulm, Germany. I can promise you, this film is not over the top and it's not necessarily taking any artistic license.

Not that every soldier was like Elwood and the rest of them. There were plenty of people who were very strait laced and did their job profesionally. But there were also plenty of people just like the ones in this film, and all of this stuff and worse did take place in the real US Army in this period. In fact I knew a guy who was eerily like Joachim Phoenixes character in this movie. He even looked kind of like him.


I'm sure it's all quite well documented, I know there were plenty of articles in Stars and Stripes and especially in the German media. Look it up online if you don't believe it. There were shootings on base, smuggling and theft rings, drug rings. Horrible racial incidents. Corruption. Riots between different Army units. Just like in the movie there were horrible "training" accidents in which numerous G.I.'s were injured and killed. Routinely. Thats just a fact of military life.

In reading some of the other reviews, I have to wonder. Who do you think your military is? A bunch of saints? A bunch of geniuses? Middle of the road high school graduates, tasked to do very difficult jobs under very trying circumstances (like staying up for days on end which the DOD seemed to have a fetish for making people do) using Extremely dangerous equipment (like tanks!)

Sometimes these kids rose to the occasion, sometimes they cracked under the strain and / or succumbed to temptation. It's just human nature.

Watch this entertaining film but only if you can handle the truth.