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I need a tank. That’s what
I learned by watching Gregor Jordan’s film “Buffalo
Soldier,", written by Eric Weiss, based on Robert O’Connor’s
book. I want a tank to drive to work and back, to pick up
my dry cleaning, and to buy fresh arugula and beets at the
farmer’s market on Sundays.
“But Michael,” you might ask. “Where would
you park a tank?”
Anywhere I fucking want! There’s traffic? I don’t
care; I drive a tank. I’m sorry, was that your dog? I
don’t stop for dogs; I drive a tank. What? You say that
there’s no actual road here? Roads are for pencil-neck
geeks who drive Hyundais. I’m a real man who eats meat
off the bone and drives a tank. Arianna Huffington can lobby
against S.U.V’s all she wants to; after she loses the
California Gubernatorial recall election to Arnold, all the
cool people will be driving tanks!"
Wow. That was liberating…
Buffalo Soldiers (released by Miramax after being shelved
for two years) tells the story of Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix),
a Sgt. Bilko- like corrupt supply clerk stationed on an army
base in West Germany, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Phoenix’s Elwood spends his days selling army-quality
Mop-and-Glo on the German black market, and he spends his
nights selling German quality Heroin to the troops on the
base. He’s glib and sarcastic enough for the audience
to like him (watching him feign innocence when finding out
that a recently dead Private had enough smack in his bloodstream
to kill a cow made me giddy), yet amoral enough so we’re
not sure if we should like him (a choice between calling an
ambulance for two dead soldiers or stealing their trucks and
selling them on the black market isn’t a choice at all.)
This is the sort of role that Bill Murray might have played
20 years ago. Wait, Bill Murray did play this kind of role
20 years ago, in the classic comedy "Stripes." Both
"Stripes" and "Buffalo Soldiers" have
more in common than just a sardonic leading man, they are
both films about enlisting in a peacetime volunteer army.
While "Stripes" played this for laughs, Buffalo
Soldiers takes the same idea very seriously. In today’s
army, (or the army of 10 years ago) the typical G.I. enlists
because he has no other choice. He can't afford college tuition.
He has no career opportunities at home. And for some, like
Phoenix’s Elwood, it was a choice between enlisting or
going to jail. For them, the army’s not an adventure,
it's a place to get free clothes and haircuts.
Phoenix does his job well. He kisses the proper amount of
ass, is obsequious when the situation calls for obsequiousness,
and has become an expert at playing both sides against the
middle. He has become so used to pulling the wool over his
superior officer’s eyes (Ed Harris, who’s good-natured
obviousness proves that this actor is capable of doing absolutely
anything he wants) that when someone starts giving him grief
(Scott Glenn), he actually looks forward to the conflict.
Another thing I learned from watching Buffalo Soldiers: if
your boss starts giving you shit, fuck his daughter. If he
refuses your offer of a stolen television when you ask him
to look the other way as you go about your business, fuck
his daughter. If he has an entire platoon open fire on your
illegally gotten Mercedes convertible, fuck his daughter.
If he tries to have you and everyone else in your heroin smuggling
ring killed, get engaged to her. Especially if she’s
played by the beautiful Anna Paquin. God, between this film,
and her roles in The 25th Hour and X2, I would do just about
anything for that woman. And it’s not helping matters
knowing that this film was actually made over two years ago,
when she was barely 19. It makes it that much better. Hell,
as I write this, I’m watching "Fly Away Home"
on the Family Channel. I’m a bad, bad man.
Actually, there was a reason why Miramax studios delayed the
release of this film for two years, and not just to appease
perverts like myself. Apparently, there was concern that after
9/11, the public wouldn’t take well to a movie that depicts
the American military in a potentially bad light. Of course,
I don’t see how showing American soldiers as a bunch
of thugs, junkies, sociopaths and thieves might be construed
as showing them in a “bad light," but that’s
just me.
So, I’m going to take a stand against censorship right
now, the only way I know how. To my editor: if you edit my
column again, you un-American commie-loving, brie-eating pencil-neck
geek, I’m going to take my brand new tank and run over
you and your Hyundai. What kind of communist drives a foreign
car? Every time you edit my column, you’re censoring
me, and that’s un-American. Every time your correct my
spelling, you’re being un-American. Every time you alter
a run-on sentence, you’re being un-American. Every time
you take out of my jokes (like the one about the hooker with
dysentery, that one was GOLD), you’re being un-American.
So leave my column alone, you Bolshevik. Or else the terrorists
win.
Niederman has spoken.
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Above:
The very sexy and now-perfectly-legal Anna Paquin and that
hare-lipped guy with the funny name nobody is sure how to
pronounce.
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