Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

WARNING: Insults ahead. Now I'm no movie critic and I don't think these comment things should be taken serious at all considering the majority of the people on this thing sharing their two cents haven't spent any time in a film studies course, creative writing course, and have no real true understanding of the art of film. "Everyone's a critic" and thanks to the internet that statement hasn't been truer.But lets get onto the movie.Any self respecting HUNTER S. THOMPSON fan should stay away from this film. It's a terrible insult to the man and he's even been quoted as saying he liked Murray's performance but that he "was very disappointed in the script. It s*cks – a bad, dumb, low-level, low-rent script." Credit where credit is due Murray does a fantastic job with Hunter's mannerisms but he makes the poor guy out to be some sort of silly cartoon character. Murry certainly could move and maybe talk like Hunter but he looked nothing like him and the writing was cr*p. Now this of course is not Murray's fault since he didn't write the script, and that is his one saving grace.Jack Kroll wrote, in his review for Newsweek magazine, "Screenwriter John Kaye has reduced Thompson's career to a rubble of disjointed episodes, and the relentless mayhem becomes tiresome chaos rather than liberating comic anarchy." Thats the truth right there. If you want to get a real in depth look at the man, read some of the Gonzo letters. I recommend The Proud Highway. A d*mn good documentary would be Fear & Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, which can be found on the Criterion Edition of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (a fantastic representation of Hunter and his work but thats for another comment board).Bottom line folks, the movie is sh*t. It reeks of bitter 80's humor and brain dead writing. Bill Murray is a great actor but he should be ashamed of this film. If you are a true Hunter fan, stay as far away from this film as possible because it degrades him to the level of a sloppy clown, which he was very far from.This movie is for the ignorant Raoul Duke duke and the poor soul who sits in his room all day watching 80's movies and dreaming they could use Doc Brown's time machine to go back to a time where they were considered "normal." Now take all that I say with a grain of salt. I've only taken one Film Studies course so I am no critic of films, but I have read every single Hunter S. Thompson book and seen every documentary that has come out and I can give my honest advice, as a person well versed in the Gonzo world, that this movie is NOT HUNTER S. THOMPSON Mahalo

Both of the HST films have problems. This film's problem is that it is too "screenwritten" (Lazlo replacing The Brown Buffalo, "Blast" Magazine replacing Rolling Stone, etc.) and lacks the weird surrealism that a drug-fueled observation of American culture at the end of the 1960s deserves, if not requires.It does play a bit like Caddyshack, as someone else pointed out, and it's hard to get really invested in the characters. And if you love HST as much as I do, you really do want to get into the characters and in to the story, because it's as important as it is funny. Where the Buffalo Roam is, for the most part, silly. It comes off as more a bunch of sketches than anything else. I did like Bill Murray in the part. The problem is the script, more than anything else.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by contrast, does well with the surrealism and depravity but fails to make the full point I think Thompson was trying to get across - the decadence and over-the-top performances (especially of del Toro) are distracting, and really all of this is supposed to be about the death of the American dream, and the end of what was (to some) the best decade on record, or at least the one where people thought, for a time, they could make something of American life. Both movies hint at this but don't go into it enough, in my opinion.Where the Buffalo Roam captures a little of the sadness and the creeping hopelessness of the early 70s (along with an indication of the hangover awaiting that generation in the 70s), but both movies fall far short of Thompson's books and writing in my opinion.I was particularly saddened that both movies left out the "We're looking for the American dream" bit at the taco stand, because I think that was important, and the F&L Vegas story seems decontextualized without it (in terms of having a fairly serious (and sad) point under all of the humor and excess).In any case, both movies are worth a watch but ultimately unsatisfying. Thompson is still best read. I think a good film about HST can be made, but the right person needs to be at the helm.Richard Linklater or John Sayles, perhaps...someone who isn't going to miss the deeper substance underlying and buttressing the humor. That being said, there are far worse movies you could be watching than either.And like Thompson, it still hasn't gotten weird enough for me.

Very interesting to see everybody's opinion on this film...from the Murray fan's who know nothing of Thompson to the Thompson fans who think nothing of Murray. To those who have seen both Buffalo and FnL, it should be apparent that either HST really acted like that, or Depp just copied Murray. Either way, this film falls just short of passable only due to Linson's mis-direction...The film seems to serve better as a pastiche of popular Thompson pieces rather than a cohesive succession of events...with no overarching direction, the movie dovetails into preachy idealism and disjointed plot angles that ultimately don't arrive at a narrative conclusion...Still, as has been the common disclaimer, the movie is necessary for anyone who considers themselves to be rabid HST fans...It should be noted, also, that several critics, and even HST himself, have hinted, if not completely insinuated, that his use of drugs in his work, to an extent, was exaggerated for numerous reasons, not the least of which is to expand and authoritative his voice as that of his disgruntled generation...I cringe when I see so many people who seem to be more fascinated by his drug use than his actual body of work...Obviously he used a fair amount of drugs in his life, but it seems to have cast a permanent, impenetrable shadow over his legacy, as if using copious amounts of drugs somehow solidified his credibility...I like drugs, but this misunderstanding of HST and his work is demeaning both to his family and his future...

I saw this movie on TV before I'd read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, and even knowing virtually nothing about his work, I knew that the movie had been watered down in the extreme. Far too much was done to try and make the characters of Thompson and Lazlo palatable to movie-going audiences and make them more sympathetic characters when part of the charm of Thompson's writing is how unrepentant he was about all the various insane/illegal/antisocial activities which he described in his writing.Not only was this movie bland, but its production values were virtually non-existent. It looks like it could have been made-for-TV.It succeeds best in the scenes where Murray portray's Thompson's casual insanity. It fails by trying to turn Thomspon into some kind of lovable rogue -- which he certainly was not.