Buffalo '66 (1998)

On a former blog site of mine, I used to have a segment that was called celebrity crushes and I would talk about what they were doing today and etc. So for today's film, I have decided to check one out from one of my celebrity crushes in Christina Ricci (The Addams Family) who starred in 1998's Buffalo '66. The film was written, directed, and starred Vincent Gallo (Arizona Dream) as Billy Brown, a recently released ex-con who needs to visit his parents in Buffalo, but the problem is that he has lied about his whereabouts and has told them he was married. So Billy acts out and he decides to kidnap Layla (Ricci) and have her pretend to be his wife and while she agrees to do it she finds herself falling in love with the very eccentric and different Billy. The other issue is that he has bad intentions for the night, but can she convince him otherwise. The film also stars Ben Gazzara (The Big Lebowski) as Jimmy Brown, Anjelica Huston (The Addams Family) as Jan Brown, Mickey Rourke (Sin City) as The Bookie, Rosanna Arquette (The Whole Nine Yards) as Wendy, Jan-Michael Vincent (Airwolf) as Sonny, Kevin Pollak (The Whole Ten Yards) as Sportscaster, and Kevin Corrigan (True Romance) as Goon.

This film was as equally interesting as it was equally frustrating at times and I mean that with the upmost respect. I thought the acting on every end was very well done as Gallo inherits the role of a true auteur when he wrote, directed, and starred in the film. Christina Ricci was as equally amazing as she was sweet, innocent, and beautiful in the film. The story is that Billy does some time for a crime he did not commit and that's all because he owed $10,000 to a bookie (nice cameo by Rourke) so the only way to pay him back was to do this. I am following along with all of that, but what loses me is the fact that Ricci has been kidnapped, but she is falling in love with the guy in every waking moment. I get the whole idea of Stockholm Syndrome, but to a guy like Billy Brown and that quick? That was kind of throwing me for a loop, but I went along with it because I knew they were going to fall in love with each other and I needed a good story. Then you get to the nice awkward family scenes at Billy's childhood home and it was just a little over the top. I definitely thought that Ben Gazzara stole those scenes that he was in. There's this moment in the film when Billy is in the strip club and the slow motion to stop motion was pretty cool and different. I did not expect that at all much like I didn't expect to like this film. I wish they did more with the bathtub scene, but I'll take what I can get and enjoyed it even with all its faults which is why I am going to give the film an B for a final grade.