Much like satire and pornography, the literary works of David Mamet are difficult to describe or define but are immediately recognizable when you see them. As one of America’s most beloved and intriguing playwrights, Mamet is responsible for several iconic and vitally important works of 20th-century theatre, each one of them a complex, engaging and nuanced portrait of a particular subject, known for their profanity-laden dialogue that is almost poetic in how it is delivered, as well as featuring many prominent actors, blending seasoned veterans with young performers very early in their careers. One of his most important works is American Buffalo, in which Mamet tells the story of the owner of a run-down junk store in a poor working-class neighbourhood, and the plan he concocts with a down-on-his-out loner who frequents his store, where they aim to rob the house of a former customer that had bought a buffalo nickel from the store, with the owner not realizing quite how much it was worth, and now deciding that he doesn’t want to let this opportunity go, and thus a heist is planned, which also involves a local teenager who sometimes helps out in the store – and over the course of a single day, everything starts to go wrong as they set the plan into motion. The play, which premiered in 1975, took over two decades to be brought to the screen, arriving in the form of the film adaptation directed by Michael Corrente, and adapted by Mamet himself. Much like the play on which it is based, this film is a tightly-packed, compact dark comedy with broad philosophical themes and a lingering sense of melancholy that has often bound a lot of the writer’s work, and under the assured direction of Corrente, a great journeyman filmmaker, American Buffalo proves to be a fascinating character study and a worthy adaptation of a play that has sat at the foundation of strong American theatre for nearly half a century.

Mamet is not a writer who is known to just throw ideas out for the sake of saying them – every word he has ever written has served a purpose, which has led to his plays and screenplays being considered some of the strongest in the history of American theatre. Much of their impact comes from how they tell the story of ordinary people facing challenges that many encounter in different contexts. They’re all heavily steeped in socio-cultural, political and economic theory, which is essentially what Mamet has perfected throughout his career, and which gives his stories such vigour and complexity. American Buffalo is about the people living on the margins, the outcasts who put themselves in that position purely based on their own decisions. We never learn much about Teach, Don or Bobby, not any more than you can learn from spending a couple of hours with a stranger over a single day. However, Mamet’s sharp and precise writing conveys a genuine sense of complexity, and we observe their arguments and conniving, which often happen in tandem – it’s a nuanced and fascinating work, and represents the playwright’s skills at their most potent, which is always an exhilarating experience and one that we find a lot of meaning in when we pay attention. There’s a brutality to how these characters are constructed, and while the film has moments of sardonic dark humour, it is mostly quite a bleak affair, since we are watching people plan a heist not to increase their wealth, but rather as a means to push themselves out of a tough economic position. Crime is never right, but there is something heartwrenching about those who commit a crime not out of greed or to earn a tidy profit, but for the mere ability to survive, this film explores those desperate measures taken by these characters in vivid detail, being a poignant but precise examination of humanity through the eyes of three complex protagonists.

American Buffalo allows us to see three fantastic actors working together, and while they occupied different strata within the industry at the time, they’re united by their shared commitment to bringing this story to life. Dustin Hoffman was at an interesting point in his career – having been acting for over thirty years, he was looking to take on more challenging work, which is a luxury afforded to those perceived as being amongst the greatest actors in the English language. This was Hoffman’s first foray into Mamet, which is particularly notable considering how Mamet’s plays are viewed as being a rite of passage for many American actors, who hold his work up to an impossibly high standard, believing that if they can conquer his dialogue and narrative rhythms, they have truly proven themselves as actors. Hoffman is terrific, especially since he plays Teach as if he were an aged Ratso Rizzo, his grimy, scruffy appearance is matched by his foul mouth and quick temper, making it a fascinating character that Hoffman portrays very well. Acting across from him for most of the film is Dennis Franz, whose work on NYPD Blue may have made him a household name, but at the expense of sparing him very few opportunities to lead a project. He is the heart of American Buffalo, playing a conflicted man caught between doing what is easy and what he knows to be right. Exceptionally compelling work from both veterans aside, we find that the third member of their small ensemble is perhaps the most effective – the young NAME had been working for a few years, but had yet to receive the attention he deserved, and while he was cast in the seemingly thankless role as the patsy to two more intimidating actors, he holds his own on screen, and delivers a heartfelt performance that ties the film together. The film cycles between the three protagonists, and produces quite an interesting perspective on each one of them, developing itself as a complex, moving portrait of desperation as seen through people simply trying to survive.

The transition from stage to screen may seem simple, especially when a filmmaker has the benefit of genuinely talented actors at the helm. However, this is not always the case, since we find that there are additional measures that need to be put in place to prevent these films from just feeling like cheap recreations of stage productions. Watching a play is a vastly different experience to a film – while the text may stay the same, and the direction mostly consistent, each performance is a new entity, witnessed only once and never again, as there are subtle changes that occur with every new performance. Mamet has always taken advantage of this, and his actors have followed suit. In a film, multiple takes are possible, but ultimately the viewer is only going to get to see a single interpretation, based on the director’s decision as to what constitutes the definitive version of a scene or even a single-line reading. American Buffalo is a play that is most electrifying on stage, since subtle beats can be altered in small but significant ways, changing the energy and shifting our relationship with these characters. In order to prevent this film adaptation from simply looking like a hackneyed version of a work that was always found greater success on stage, Mamet and Corrente work laboriously to develop the film to feel cinematic in its own way, without changing the dynamic. It may have been tempting to increase the number of locations (which is done very briefly, almost to the point of being inconsequential) or add in more characters outside of the central duo, but this would shift the nature of the story too far from where it was most successful, as well as removing a lot of the psychological tension that lingers over the narrative, which was vital to the overall experience of seeing this story play out in almost real-time. Tonally and emotionally, American Buffalo is wildly compelling, and we find that Corrente’s firm direction keeps everything in order, while still provoking something much more profound.

The reasons why it took so long for American Buffalo to be adapted to film aren’t clear – previous Mamet works had been given the film treatment at different points, and this is certainly one of the easiest stories to tell, since the narrative is not bound to a particular place or time, and the cast is small and compact, so we could conceivably see this story being told in just about any context without too much difficulty. However, it’s likely that there was just not any need to bring it to the screen any sooner, since it had a vibrant life of its own on stage, and Mamet himself was actively working in Hollywood, taking on a fruitful secondary career as a screenwriter (he even reunited with Hoffman the following year on the pitch black satire Wag the Dog, which is once again another peak for both the actor and the writer), so he had his projects that he was hoping to have greenlit before retreading previously successful material. This film is not commonly discussed, and for many its existence may not even be known, since it isn’t particularly present in conversations about anyone’s career, meaning that it is something more likely to be discovered than recommended – and going into the film without prior expectations is a benefit, since it essentially means that it can take us by surprise, developing into something much more profound without the weight of expectations on the part of the audience. Driven by fantastic performances and told with sharp wit and a lot of firm commitment to the themes at the heart of the story, American Buffalo is a triumph and a film that is worth a look, especially for those who may not have known about its existence, which seems to be a substantial portion of the audience.