"Good but not great" was my take on Buffalo Soldiers when I reviewed it concisely back in 2003. After (finally) watching it again with V last night I will upgrade that to "very good".She'd insisted on a film that was "funny...no subtitles". That didn't leave me with much to go on in my current un-viewed DVD collection. We tried The Life and Death of Peter Sellars, but the opening animation seemed to augur very badly.
So we switched over to Gregor' Jordan's penetratingly dark comedy about men of war bored with peace, which had ended up shelved for a couple of years after 9-11.
V is usually turned off by anything "in camouflage" but appeared gripped from the moment the troops marched across the Stars and Stripes after the opening titles. A thinking-man's Police Academy, she concluded; a very cynical thinking man.
For a movie to be all it can be there's really no substitute for a superbly written and structured script and solid performances. This one makes you laugh and makes you think a bit too.
Last week V greatly enjoyed another film that I had seen without her back in 2003: Belleville Rendezvous. I think I appreciated its Gallic charm a bit more on the second viewing!
1 comment:
Yes, I quite liked this one too, but not a classic. Big fan of Joachim Phoenix who really carries the film, as he seems to do so often in other movies too.
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