OK film fans, if it seems like the posts are starting later and later you are correct and overly observant. The truth is it's taking me longer and longer to unwind at the end of the day, leaving me less time to figure out which gems to polish and display here. Tonight's film is one you may not be familiar with, directed by an actor whose personal exploits you might have heard about, causing you to avoid him like the hot mess he is. But his work, both as a director and an actor, is always original and often interesting.
Buffalo '66 was writer/director/actor/composer/producer Vincent Gallo's first full length feature film. After nearly a decade working as an actor in indie and experimental films Gallo culled these experiences and combined them with his own strange life growing up in Buffalo. The result is an unconventional story about the redemptive powers of love. Unfortunately, Gallo's second film, 2003's The Brown Bunny, is so universally hated and reviled it may be another decade before he'll get another chance to helm even an indie film. And that's unfortunate because while The Brown Bunny was an overly self indulgent mess, it wasn't a horrible film, the notorious scene aside (and by notorious I mean x-rated!).
Billy Brown (Gallo) has just gotten out of jail after serving 5 years for something he didn't do. When he gets out he has only two things on his mind: visiting his mom and dad and exacting some payback for his prison time. After taking care of some urgent business (remember to go to the bathroom before they let you out of prison) he promptly kidnaps Layla (Christina Ricci) from her tap dancing class. He informs her that she will need to pretend to be his wife when he visits his folks. We never really learn anything about Layla's background or why she would go along with this request. Is she bored or is she slightly damaged goods like Billy? Regardless, the film moves along quickly and with enough pathos that we never really wonder what she sees in him, we just realize that she seems to like the attention and the oddity of it all.
Billy's folks are worse than you can imagine (although perhaps not for Gallo since he has admitted to portions of the film being autobiographical as a Buffalo native raised my Sicilian immigrants). His mother Jan (the iconic Anjelica Houston) is obsessed with the Buffalo Bills to the point of derangement while his father Jimmy (the always menacing Ben Gazzara) is both an enabler and lecherous to boot. During the disastrous visit we come to understand that Billy has been on his own for a very long time before his jail stint, which he kept from hidden from his parents, hence the rouse of her being his wife. After years of neglect he still only wants attention and adoration from his parents, but none is forthcoming.
At this point it is no longer a suspicion that Layla is smitten by the lonely, sad and haunting Billy. Like someone rescuing a puppy from a dog pound she's found choice and makes up her mind to save him. Billy however still has revenge on his mind. We discover that Billy, in an ill conceived plan of becoming a hero in his mother's eyes, bet $10k on the Buffalo Bills to win the Super Bowl. His nightmare began when the kicker for the Bills shanks the game winning kick and loses the game (a la the real life '91 Bills team). His bookie (Mickey Rourke) agrees to forgive his debt if he serves time for one of his associates. But Billy is not after the bookie, he's after the kicker who ruined his chance of impressing his mom.
Billy has plans about killing the despised kicker in a strip club he now owns. The visualization Billy has of the attack is one of many scenes depicting how much Gallo had absorbed from the filmmakers he had worked with. In the end the only thing that can save him is Layla. It's almost endearing that such a narrowly accessible indie film that deals primarily in isolation, despair and depression, is in fact a story about the power of love. Gallo has captured a conventional theme in a starkly intriguing and unconventional manner. What's more astonishing is that after being subjected to such unrelentingly belligerent and unlikeable characters we are willing to go along for the ride to see if love can conquer all.
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