Movie Review: Where the Buffalo Roam

Fond memories of my wayward youth do not hold up in late middle age.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s we had Cable TV, and my parents subscribed to HBO, one of the first pay TV options on Cable in our area (Silicon Valley).

Being Gen X, we were free-range kids, and there wasn’t much supervision of what we watched on the boob-tube. HBO was a little less risqué back then, but there were still bare breasts at times.

But what HBO really brought into our living room was a stream of movies. This was pre-VCR days, so HBO with ad-free movies being funneled over the twin coax cables was just the bees-knees.

One that I remember fondly was “Where the Buffalo Roam”, a roughly biopic of Hunter S. Thompson, the original Gonzo Journalist. Starring Bill Murray, and Peter Boyle, I recall it being a fun romp through the end of the 60’s and the era of Nixon. Hell, in the opening scenes, Murray (Thompson) is working on a story for his newspaper/magazine) and drinks tumblers of Wild Turkey Bourbon, and he has trained his Doberman to hit on a manikin wearing a Nixon mask on the word “nixon”.

It is a wild romp, with innuendo, sexual situations, plenty of hippies, and counterculture references.

Here is where my memory and the reality diverge. The 16 year old me watching this in 1981 was entranced, and enjoyed it greatly. Now, I have purchased a copy, ripped it to the Plex Server, and while I enjoy watching it, it is a wee bit less fun that it was. The span of 42 years from then to now has taken the sheen off my memory.

Am I glad I bought a copy? Yes. Is it something I will watch regularly? No.

But, the soundtrack is chocked full of great Neil Young music, a huge bonus.

Early Bill Murray was fun, and his portrayal of Dr. Thompson was pretty solid, something that I think only he could pull off. But after all these years, the story is pretty weak (not that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was an uninteresting character), and it comes across as a vehicle for Murray.

16 year old me would have rated this 4 stars (16 year old me also thought that the original Star Wars was a 5 out of 5) but 58 year old me is much more sanguine. 2 out of 5 is as high as I can go. There are plenty of laughs, and the recreation of the Superbowl in a Las Vegas hotel room, Bruno Kirby as the editor of his magazine and the like can only go so far in making a movie pop. The fact is that without the Neil Young soundtrack, I might have rated this a 1.