About the movie

Donny, a junk shop dealer, realizes that he sold a rare coin to a collector for far less than it was worth and decides to steal it back - along with whatever else the guy has. Donny plans to enlist his young gofer and surrogate son Bobby in the crime. Unfortunately, Donny's long-time friend and poker buddy Teach has other plans. He wants to cut Bobby out entirely. A haunting tale of betrayal and friendship in the world of small time hustlers, American Buffalo showcases three of today's finest performers.

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz and Sean Nelson.
Produced by Gregory Mosher.
Directed by Michael Corrente.

About the music

This CD contains two scores: the disappointing score to American Buffalo and the fantastic music (in the form of suite) for Threesome. The main instruments in American Buffalo are guitar, harmonica and drums. There are a lot of different sounds and noises, but there's virtually no melody and the whole thing, although nicely orchestrated, seems to go nowhere. A lot of the tracks are just plain boring. The movie is really a play turned into film and maybe that's the reason for this sustained approach. While this kind of score probably fits the movie perfectly, on disc it becomes tedious and uninteresting. There's some blues and there's some music that is actually inspired (track 4, What Kind Of This, for instance), but on the whole, this score is over before you know it and makes you feel mildly disappointed. The good thing is that this will only make you enjoy Threesome, the (outstanding) second part of this disc, even more.

The soundtrack

Street date: September 1996.
Availability: out of print.

Track listing

American Buffalo

1. Buffalo Head (2:43)
2. Classical Money (1:33)
3. Bobby (0:54)
4. What Kind Of This (2:10)
5. Jaw (1:11)
6. Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby (1:22)
7. King High Flush (1:01)
8. Nothing Out There* (1:24)
9. Chump Change (1:17)
10. The Guy (1:20)
11. Tails You Lose (2:43)