Buffalo
Bill’s (Paul Newman) Wild West show is a big hit. In what has got to be the Old West version of
a casting coup, Bill lands none other than Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) as the
show’s latest attraction. Sitting Bull
soon proves to be more trouble than he’s worth.
He begins acting like a total diva, making lofty demands and generally
causing trouble for the show. It’s then
up to Bill to placate his new star while retaining his artistic vision for the
show (even if it differs from historical fact).
Like
Robert Altman’s Nashville, The Player, and A Prairie Home Companion, Buffalo
Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History is a picture about the daily
life of show biz folk and their various struggles. It has all the overlapping dialogue, long
tracking shots, and colorful characters you’d expect from an Altman
picture. It’s overlong, patchy, and
uneven, but there are moments when you see can what he was going for.
The
scenes of Buffalo Bill trying to outwit Sitting Bull and his ever-increasing
list of demands play out just fine.
Somewhere along the way, the film starts going around in circles. Once the wheels start falling off in the
second act, it slowly becomes a rambling endurance test. The loose narrative becomes almost
nonexistent as it enters the final act.
Newman
is good as the crotchety Bill. The film
is at its best when he’s front and center being wily and flashing his trademark
smile, but even he can’t save the slow-moving narrative. Harvey Keitel and Kevin McCarthy also get a
few laughs as members of Bill’s company.
Burt Lancaster has a couple of nice moments too as Bill’s publicist, who
mostly sits on the sidelines commenting on the action.
It’s
Newman who gets the best line of the movie when he says, “The last thing a man
wants to do is the last thing he does.”
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