Buffalo Soldiers, directed by Gregor Jordan, appears to be a retake of Catch 22 (1970). The film takes place in October 1989 and centers on the 317th Supply Battalion, commanded by Colonel Berman (played by Ed Harris), at an army base in Stuttgart, Germany. Since there is no enemy, what do the soldiers do with their time? Screw up or get screwed. Ray Elwood (played by Joaquin Phoenix), the supply sergeant, got his job after being given a choice of six months in prison or three years in the army. Taking advantage of the situation, he requisitions and then sells on the black market. His first scam in the film involves reselling gallons of Mop & Glow, but his most lucrative racket is to process Turkish hashish into heroin for resale on the base. Heroin comes from the opium poppy, of course, but the story is fictional, based on a novel by Robert O'Connor, who chooses as his title the name of a regiment of freed slaves who were assigned to kill Native Americans on the plains after the Civil War. How can he buy hashish with Mop & Glow? He cannot, so the story provides a more serious commodity--a big supply of arms stolen from two supply trucks whose drivers were accidentally killed when a tank operated by junkies ran over gas pumps at a service station. However, Robert "Top" Lee (played by Robert Glenn) suddenly appears as a new Master Sergeant for the Supply Battalion. He immediately smells something fishy, though he need look no farther than cause-of-death reports of various service personnel at the base. Believing that Elwood is at the center of illegal activities, he searches his room, refuses to take a bribe from Elwood, and assigns a new recruit to be Elwood's roommate. Elwood then tries to annoy Lee by dating his daughter Robyn (played by Elizabeth McGovern), who has a ready supply of Ecstasy and falls for Elwood because he is obviously a naughty boy running a racket. But Elwood has no gameplan to deal with Lee. His roommate, roughed up by African Americans while walking alone one night, carries out an undercover assignment by reporting Elwood's movements to Lee, who in turn arranges to total Elwood's car and to beat him up. An outcome never in doubt, the good guys win out, including Berman, who is discharged for incompetence yet able to buy a Napa vineyard with his pension, and Elwood, who gets a purple heart and another opportunity to run a scam. Buffalo Soldiers questions why American soldiers, who are portrayed as confidence men or junkies, are assigned to Germany despite the end of the Cold War. But with its release delayed due to 9/11, the Afghanistan War, and Gulf War II, the film's crude answers are only found in art house cinemas because they are too politically incorrect in 2003, when the American people do not want to believe that their military are "ugly Americans." MH

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Buffalo Soldiers
by Robert O'Connor

Set on a luxuriously appointed and hopelessly corrupt Army base in Mannheim, Germany, where the soldiers prefer real-life race riots to mock combat, Robert O'Connor's viciously funny novel is conclusive proof that peace is hell and the U.S. Army is its ninth circle.