Buffalo 66: A look back to an little known masterpiece

Directed by: Vincent Gallo

Buffalo 66 is not a new release or even a new DVD release. It was released in 1998. But I don't care and have decided to review it anyway. In a way, I am following the lead of the films director 'Vincent Gallo' and doing what i want to do without caring about what I 'should do'.

I first saw this film in 1999 and new that it was special. However with repeated viewings since, it has become a film that I think about all the time and has become imbedded in my psyche. Anyone who has read my article regarding 'The Brown Bunny'
knows that I pull no punches when it comes to worship at the altar of Gallo and believe many people are ignorant of his talent. Too many people refer to him and his work as self indulgent and brush him aside for being too egotistical. Yes, Gallo has a large ego but that is not the same thing. Its just that he has a strong sense of self, probably as a result of exploring himself and his experiences in what is obviously very personal work. what is wrong with this? At least he is being true to him self.

Anyway, enough of my defending Gallo and on with my describing why Buffallo 66 should be celebrated as a beautifully crafted film. After the first 15 minutes of the film where you watch Gallo as the fims lead 'Billy Brown' desperately trying to find somewhere to take a piss, grabbing between his legs as he stumbles around a desloate Buffalo, you realise that you are going to see a film that is unflinchingly honest.

Its another Gallo film featuring an emotionally and mentally scarred character only it differs from The Brown Bunny in that it is infused with a subtle off-key humour and more of a narrative focus (thats not to say that this is not a character based film - it is.). Again, Gallo as a true auteur, writes, directs and stars in the lead role. The Orson Wells of his generation? The film is about Billy Brown, just released from prison after being blackmailed by a gangster to take the fall for someone else due to his inabillity to repay a gambling debt.

In a wonderful cameo by Mickey Rourke (the afforementioned gangster), he delivers this demand in a frighteningly understated way. Its the 'lassez faiz' way in which he tells Billy that 'very bad and evil things' will happen to his parents if he doesn't comply. We know he means it. This threat underpins one of the films more central ironies in that Billys parents have been a constant source of pain throughout his life. Essentially, they have never shown him love. In an original way, the film reveals how they are to blame for his lack of social skills including bad anger management and his inabillity to physically engage with people. They have completely and utterly shattered his sense of self worth. Another irony lies in how his mother is an obsessesive supporter of the buffalo football team. it was a missed field kick by the teams star kicker 'Scott Wood' that lost Billy his bet.

Billy decides that Scott Woods is to blame for all the problems now present in his life and makes it his mission to exact his revenge by killing him. Somehow there is humour here. During a scene in a diner, Billy is sat with a young girl (Christina Ricci), who he had earlier kidnapped and persuaded to pretend to be his wife during a traumatic visit to his parents. He loses his cool (not for the first time) due to a girl he used to be bessotted with as a child 'Wendy Balsam' walking into the diner with her boyfriend and sitting at the table opposite. Christina Ricci's character begins to realise the significance of this girl as just before the visit to Gallos parents, he tells her to say her name is Wendy Balsam. Instead of engaging with the issue Billy simply mutters 'I'm gonna kill that Scott Wood'. Gallos delivery of this line makes me laugh out loud.

Back to the issue of kidnap. What makes the whole dynamic between Gallo and Ricci's characters so interesting is her willingness to do what he asks of her. Not only is she another vulnerable, lonely soul, she see's something in Billy - and why not? Yes, he is seriously fucked up but he is a cool, striking looking guy; with his long tangled jet black hair and his 'rock-star' red leather ankle boots. Despite his hostile attitude, she see's a similar vulnerabillity and child like innocence beneath his shell. She can see that he actually needs her. Their relationship plays out in a very cagey way due to Billys extreme angst. He is so lost in his rage for Scott Wood, it is not until the end of the film that he sees just how happy this girl could make him.

WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD.

The end of the film is quite simply cool. Billy enters Scott Woods strip joint in a bid to blow him away. Everything is in slow motion. The loud rock pulsates. The semi-naked toned bodies of young girls gyrate. The tacky gold decor shimmers. Then Bang! Billy unleashes a bullet in Scott Woods head then one in his own. in a serious of wonderfully creative shots, the camera swings around the frozen action of the bullet leaving the side of Billys head. This is early flow-mo long before it was made more slick by the Wachowski's. Gallo put this on screen before they did and with a fraction of the money they had.

But then...No! This didn't actually happen. In a the same clever way we had earlier glimpsed into gallo's mind, it is revealed that this too was happening inside his head. The nightmare posibillity of what could have been. Instead, Billy leaves the club and Scott Wood behind, to return to Christina Ricci who he has left in a motel room across the street. On the phone to his only friend he is as giddy as a child at Christmass and refers to her as his girlfriend and states that she loves him. It has finally sunk in. He has found someone and he is right - she does love him. She loves him for all his faults which are many. This is the first person who has ever loved him.

This is a beautiful film and finishes with a wonderful scene - one of my favourites from any film. Billy breezes into a doughnut shop next to the motel and buys a heart shaped cookie for his first ever girlfriend. When he asks the wonderfully naturalistic acting clerk who made them, he replies 'I dunno...someone romantic I guess'. Billy, now too a romantic, sees a man sat at a nearby table and asks him if he has a girlfirend. He says he does so Billy buys another cookie for him to give to her, he then leaves the shop to return to his own girlfriend with a smile on his face and hope in his eyes,  leaving me with tears in mine.
 

  Paul Thompson, Britfilms