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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 39635
Released: January 23, 2001 |
| Our Price: $2.40 |
| Used Price: $2.13 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Two-time Academy AwardÂ(r) winner* Dustin Hoffman and two-time Emmy winner Dennis Franz ("NYPD Blue") deliver tour-de-force performances as volatile small-time hustlers in this edgy, electrifying story of trust, betrayal and loyalty gone dangerously awry. American Buffalo is a riveting study in human virtue and vulnerability from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Mamet (Wag the Dog, The Edge, The Untouchables) and director Michael Corrente. For down-and-out junk dealer Don (Franz), life goes from unlucky to unbearable when he discovers that the rare, buffalo head nickel he just sold for $90 is worth ten times as much! Refusing to let himself beout-swindled, Don enlists the help of a young protÃ(c)gÃ(c) (Sean Nelson) in a scheme to steal the coin back. But their plans are suddenly altered by the intrusion of Teach (Hoffman), a disturbingly aggressive would-be thief who badgers Don into cutting him in on the heista decision that carries explosive consequences for everyone involved. *1988: Actor, Rain Man; 1979: Actor, Kramer vs. Kramer
Description of American Buffalo:
David Mamet's hit play from the 1970s has made it to the screen with its grim humor intact. The story of a robbery that never actually happens, the three-character drama focuses on a set of small-timers looking for a big score: Donny (Dennis Franz), who runs a junk shop; his jittery young assistant, Bobby (Sean Nelson); and Teach (Dustin Hoffman), a card-playing pal of Donny's with a nose for a shifty deal. Donny has accidentally sold a rare buffalo-head nickel to a customer not realizing what it's worth, and so he and Bobby are planning to steal it back--and Teach wants a piece of the job. Mamet's trademark testosterone-fueled jabber is less about crime than about the ways men talk to--and at--each other. Hoffman is grungily appealing as a guy who always goes a step too far, while Franz brings a quiet power to his role as a man who always knows more than he says. --Marshall Fine
American Buffalo Reviews:
American Buffalo 
2008-07-03 - Although Dennis Franz and Dustin Hoffman are, in my opinion, great actors, the plot to this movie was a real piece of garbage, and I don't think Franz and Hoffman should ever have agreed to participating in it.
American Buffalo DVD Review 
2008-06-24 - A well-acted film with fine dialog. The DVD is in widescreen and enhanced for 16:9 TVs.
Watched it filming!!!!
2006-02-03 - I worked at thr YMCA in Pawtucket, R.I.,where this was filmed, and was fortunate to see alot of the shooting! One scene was filmed directly outside the YMCA's doors! Met Dennis Franz....what a nice guy! Met the director also....he too was quite congenial.Saw Hoffman,but could not get too close to him...Not like the bear hug, and joking around I enjoyed with Dennis Franz! I liked the movie for perhaps sentimental reasons...and also the young male actor in it was quite good, as well as of course Hoffman, and Franz...but could have done without some elements that were "overdone" i.e. swearing. It is a pretty decent film on the whole.The three actors seemed to work very well together, and I noticed,enjoyed goofing around with each other off-set!
Hoffman Shines In This Small-Scale Mamet Adaptation
2006-01-19 - This came and went with nary a peep back in '96, but it deserved more attention than it got. Adaptations of David Mamet's work are not for everyone, I realize, but at least in this case the playwright did the adapting himself. Hoffman is a treat as Teach, a small-time hood who is all talk and very little action. The entire film is essentially a three-person, one-set ensemble piece, but Hoffman, Dennis Franz, and the young Sean Nelson pull it off. Franz wisely chose to underplay his role as Donny, who listens semi-patiently to all of Teach's endless bluster, and Michael Corrente's direction is mostly successful in keeping the film from feeling too stagey.
AVOID 
2005-03-28 - really boring extremly bad just talking i putone star because i have no choice because it would be zero
