Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

LeonLouisRicci An Awkward, starting with the Title, Film from Maverick Director Robert Altman, and Starring Paul Newman as Bill.Unconventional Satire with the Altman Touches Carrying the Movie along a Path of Pontificate, Ridicule, and Revisionist Revelatory. It's about Myth Making and Show Business. The way that the American West of the 19th Century would become Mythologized in Dime Novels and then Movies.Ned Buntline (Burt Lancaster) sums up the Film's Thesis. Buntline was the Author of many Aforementioned Dime Novels...Buntline to Bill....."I'm glad I invented you."......This is an Epiphany for Bill and it seems that He finally Gets It.The Ego-Maniacal, Narcissistic Buffalo Bill, in a Daze of Old Age and Alcohol, Gets that He has Become the Character. He was Not Playing the Character as He Thought, He has Become the Character that Buntline Created. It was No Longer an Act, it is what is.The Film Looks Gorgeous and is Populated with an Abundance of Great Actors Playing Great Characters. The Dialog is Sharp Tongued and the Altman Style of Fluid Camera Weaving in and out of Scenes is Captivating.The Movie was Not a Hit and got Mediocre Reviews at Best. But it Cannot be Denied its Place in the "Cinema as Art" Category. It's Preachy but Never Boring. It's Anti-Everything it Touches.Robert Altman always made Movies without Interference or Pre-Conceived Notions of Box-Office and Popular Approval. He is a Film Director in a World that wants Guarantees Upfront.Altman just Shrugs all that Off and made Movies to Suit Himself. All Great Artists do just that. Not for Every Taste but Altman is for Sure...a Great Artist. This is another Example of Altman Crafting and Creating His Art. The Decision to Embrace it or Not is Up to You.

Scorpio_65 I am a huge Robert Altman fan and, I have to admit, I really hated this film the first time I saw it. Most of his films have fairly slow paces which can sometimes be enjoyable and can other times be challenging; however, my initial reaction to the pace of this film was incredibly tedious, boring, and *really* tried my patience to the point where it was not an enjoyable experience in any way. So, I watched the whole thing, went to bed, then watched it the next night after reading a bit of historical context into Buffalo Bill. It helped a *great* deal with the multi-tasking of following some the historical context of what was said in the film while simultaneously enjoying the individual subtleties of the cast's improvisation. The eclectic cast is really wonderful even at their most subtle as in most Altman's films. I particularly enjoyed Will Sampson, Geraldine Chaplin (my favourite role of her's here), Burt Lancaster, and, of course, Paul Newman...even Harvey Keitel was great. If anything, one should take in the cast of this film and I encourage anyone to do a Google search of some kind just to get a bit of historical context of Buffalo Bill before watching, as I did, if you don't know too much. Certainly, by no means, is this film up to par with other Altman masterpieces like 3 Women, but worth two viewings if you are interested in seeing most of his films.

Bill Slocum The best part of "Buffalo Bill And The Indians, Or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" is the first ten to 15 minutes. We join a Wild West show rehearsal circa 1885, and watch as its staff work at creating a show that takes itself a little too seriously. The feeling of observing a real, living thing comes across, only a bit funnier than reality."Tell Joy not to get on the horse in back," mutters the show's MC, Salisbury (Joel Grey) regarding an actress playing a white woman abducted by Indians. "It looks fake. We're in the authentic business." Later, Salisbury shoots down a band's idea of real frontier music as "too Ukrainian."All this is easy to miss when so much is going on at once, while horses nearly run down a pedestrian in the foreground. This is a Robert Altman film, after all, or "Robert Altman's Absolutely Unique and Heroic Enterprise of Inimitable Lustre!" as it bills itself.As Jeff Lebowski might say, Altman's not into that whole brevity thing here. A two-hour extravaganza, "Buffalo Bill" stars Paul Newman as Bill and makes its points about how show business and American mythmaking became one with repetitive, haymaker swings. The end result is a comedy that's not that funny and a social statement that's not that convincing, but Altman's secret sauce of a busy camera and piquant performances makes for a pleasant if shapeless affair.Newman's something of a disappointment, giving less a performance than a caricature. I get the feeling he was directed by Altman to just play a slightly older and more pompous Hud with a goatee. He fills out Bill by drinking rotgut from a schooner, loving and spurning a succession of opera singers who never stop singing in frame, and watching over his stardom with a kind of prissy defensiveness that belies his self-cultivated frontier image. He can be a joy to watch still, working his eyes and playing to his mirror, maybe winking at the audience about what they expect from him as both Bill and Paul. If only he had better material."You ain't changed, Bill.""I ain't supposed to. That's why people pay to see me."There's also the business of his dealing with the Wild West Show's newest star attraction, Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts), which gives the story much of its social perspective. Bill thinks of Bull as an ungrateful pet who needs cultivation in "the show business," while Bull thinks Bill sells lies in the guise of history. Hence the "history lesson," which feels shoehorned in from a more socially committed source play. Altman wants to tell that story, but most times he'd rather have fun with the show-making part, and while you are watching this, you wish he'd cut loose and do just that.The film succeeds in short bursts, though the eccentric casting choices Altman throws at you here don't work as well as they did in his other films. Geraldine Chaplin as Annie Oakley? Harvey Keitel as Bill's nerdy nephew? Some Altman vets like Robert DoQui and Allan F. Nicholls are barely in the film while stars like Newman, Keitel, and Burt Lancaster get longer spotlight time. John Considine is fun as Annie's flinchy husband, "the handsomest human target in the West," though that running joke, like so many others, is plugged more times than one of Annie's nickels. I was impressed also by Kevin McCarthy's publicist character, not only for the juiciness of his grandiloquent performance but the magnitude of his handlebar mustache."Buffalo Bill" takes a lot of time saying a good deal less than it thinks. But the spectacle of "the show business" and the minor bits of Altman kookiness and sardonic commentary around the edges keep this a diverting if underfilling entertainment.

evanston_dad A very weak Altman film, all the weaker because it came out the year after one of Altman's best works: "Nashville." "Buffalo Bill..." is one of the most savagely satiric films from a director known for savage satire. Unfortunately, it's also a one-joke film, whose joke is given away in the first five minutes, leaving the film nowhere to go. Paul Newman plays Buffalo Bill as a complete buffoon, surrounded by yes-men and lackeys. He practically buys ex-Indian chief Sitting Bull for his Wild West show, and what we suffer through is scene after scene of white men making asses of themselves while native American Indians nobly and quietly observe and judge them. It's two hours of smug finger pointing at oblivious Caucasians for raping and pillaging the American frontier.All of Altman's films have the feel of coming together in the editing room, and many times this approach to structure results in inspired moments, but "Buffalo Bill" feels even more than usual like a film without a center. There's no narrative thread to hold it together, so it has a wandering and monotonous quality. Also, it doesn't help that Altman's shooting style is uncharacteristically distant. There are virtually no close-ups in the entire picture, so scene after scene is photographed in medium and long shots. Both the screenplay and the camera keep us at a distance; as a result, we never become engaged in the action.A definitive misfire.Grade: C