BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Mark Heiliger I've never seen this play performed except for that time in college when I directed a scene from it. I deliberately avoided this movie at the time so as not to color my direction any particular way. The way I see the play is a couple of old guys sitting around a resale shop talking about stealing a guy's coin collection, sort of fooling themselves into thinking they're even capable of such a thing. My ideal cast would be (undead) Lemmon and Matthau, but it could also work with some very young people who don't know better. The point is, the crime is that distant idea which is captivating, but an impossibility. It's like folks who dream about winning the lottery and imagine what they'd do with those vast riches, but know inside that it'll never happen.This movie's mistake, in my eyes as a one-time director, is that it almost makes the crime plausible. Don, owner of the shop, and Teach, his talkative buddy, go through the plan of what to do when they get to the guy's house. How do they get inside? Go through a window the guy left open. What if there's no window? There's always something - kick in the door if you have to. Okay, where does the guy keep his coins? In his desk drawer. How do you know? C'mon, they have to be in there. If he's got a safe? Find the combination written down somewhere in the house. What if he didn't write it down? Everybody writes it down! How do we even know he's not home right now? They call the number and are shocked when someone actually answers. But they dialed the wrong number anyway. The long discussions these two have about the plan is a lot like some little kids having a play war in the backyard. No detail of the fantasy is too small and if things don't work out, you can always whip out an imaginary sword and gut your enemy, just like Teach plans to somehow find a safe combination hidden somewhere in a whole house.This play always worked better as a sad little comedy to me. The movie's director, one Mr. Michael Corrente, has turned it into a real caper movie! That's too easy a choice to make, too on the nose, and it doesn't allow the audience to see the irony of these washed up crooks trying desperately to convince themselves that they've still got what it takes. I never saw these guys as taking the whole thing too seriously as an actual thing that they were going to do. I just see Lemmon and Matthau trying to entertain themselves with the notion that they're going to commit a crime together, like the old days. Maybe Teach thinks it's a real thing, but not Don. Don is just the one who plays along with Teach's wild fantasies. Not in this movie. Here Don is every bit as committed to the theft as Teach, and just as devastated when it looks impossible. I didn't laugh as much at this movie as I did at the play in my mind. This thing is just depressing.http://www.movieswithmark.com

helpless_dancer When two low life dirtbags see an easy score they spent many worrisome hours figuring out how to run the game. So engrossed were they in their greed that they were unable to look at the score with any degree on intelligent planning. Hoffman's character was a particularly odious goof totally unable to consider anything but a speedy, easy job. Crazy film; thumbs up.

mattymatt4ever Watching this film on screen and on stage (I imagine) wouldn't be a hell of a lot different. It's still a 3-character film that revolves around the same setting--most of the time. But when you see great acting like this, how can you complain?? Dustin Hoffman is great at whatever he does, and he's perfectly believable as the foul-mouthed Teach. He has some of the greatest lines. My favorite is "Guys like that, I'd like to f**k their wives." He is rude and obnoxious with barely a sympathetic quality, but he's the guy you love to hate. I just recently started watching "NYPD Blue" and just from watching a few episodes, I can say that Dennis Franz is one of the best actors I've ever seen. He deserves to be on the big screen a lot more, because he has abilities as an actor that only few TV actors also possess. He delivers every line and every emotion with such power that your eyes are wide open with amazement every minute he's on screen. Even young actor (I assume he's now in his late teens) Sean Nelson is perfectly cast, blowing me away with a performance I'm sure very few young actors can pull off just as effectively. He only has about 20 or 30 minutes of screen time, yet he's the character you most feel sorry for at times, despite the fact that he lives an unclean life, dealing with thugs and earning his money via dishonest methods. You can just sense that he didn't have any parental leadership, and he wasn't sure what path in life to take, so he took the most easy one--and also the most dangerous one. In a way, the two guys are like his surrogate parents. I've never seen the play, but when I see the name "David Mamet" under the writing credits, I immediately know that I'm gonna hear some priceless dialogue. I don't know how he does it, but he just has a relentlessly quick wit when it comes to creating dialogue. Like a play, this movie is composed of 80 % dialogue, but the dialogue is so great that I don't really care if there's no exciting visuals. And last but no least, I loved the opening and closing theme song. It just has that grungy quality that perfectly fits the tone of "American Buffalo." If you're a fan of superb acting, this will be a real treat! A real treat! My score: 8 (out of 10)

jglapin Yep, this is a dreary film set in a dreary junkshop in a dreary city. It is the perfect material for the pre-Prozac set of depressed souls. This play reminded me of "No Exit" to the extent that I imagine the characters going through these deliberations and recriminations every day into eternity. Unless the viewer is interested in exploring obsession and depression, it is not likely they will find much here. Mr. Mamet is so good at finding a moment, a glance, an expression and, climbing inside of it, he turns it inside out and expresses almost geometric variations. If he were not a playright he might have been a jazz musician.