Not even bad in a good way

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

A lot of reviews here assert that the sex scenes in this film are gratuitous and unnecessary, and I think those individuals may have missed the point of the film.Arriaga intended this story to be a conviction of sorts of the younger generation, who he sees as eschewing emotional and intellectual intimacy and using sex to fill the void. Sex is the primary language these characters speak, and it is also the evidence for which they are charged.Manuel does not have a very high regard for women. In the film, we see him use women for lust, for comfort, for anger, and for a bastardized form of love which I'll get to.After Gregorio is driven to suicide, he leaves a box for Manuel, who has been engaged in a years-long affair with Gregorio's girlfriend, Tania. In flashbacks, he shows little guilt, but when he receives the box, his guilt manifests as Gregorio's madness; he sees earwigs crawling on him, but they always disappear.The box contains notes and photos depicting things Gregorio could not possibly know: omens of Manuel's tryst with Gregorio's sister, Margarita, and things Manuel and Tania said to each other behind closed doors. More notes are delivered by Gregorio's friend Jacinto, who becomes the proxy by which Gregorio haunts Manuel from beyond the grave and protects Tania from being pulled down into Manuel's madness.As Manuel becomes further and further unhinged, we see that his love for Tania is hardly love at all, but is contingent upon her love for him. He loves her only because she loves him, and whenever he doubts her love, he becomes angry, violent, or distant with her.Their relationship culminates in a bizarre sex scene, the symbolism of which I'm still unsure about. After that, Manuel's life falls apart completely. Everyone leaves him, including Tania, but her parting words of love leave Manuel something to cling to in his coming solitude.If you like erotic dramas, this film does not disappoint. Apart from the scene described earlier, it isn't very difficult to understand, which is why some of the other reviews here confuse me a bit. It isn't an instant favorite of mine, but it is quite good, and I'd recommend a watch for any lovers of the genre.

In many reviews I have mentioned I like films about people I would like to know.This is NOT one of those films.This is a drama about unhappy people at a sad time in there lives.Jorje Hernandez Aldana directed & co-wrote this with Guillermo Arriaga.It stars DIEGO LUNA one of Mexico's best actors of the day.Watching him just lying in bed is exciting. He is still grieving of the recent suicide of his best friend, Liz Gallardo,is the girl friend of both men. There are many well done but almost explicit sex scenes,these scenes are essential to the story,the full frontal nudity of both is also necessary.There is also one sad but needed scene at a ZOO where an act of violence occurs.As I stated above, this is a sad story about sad people.For a reason I really cant explain, I appreciated what I saw, & hopefully you will as well.Ratings: *** (out of 4) 87 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10)

Sorry, I don't agree with the previous comment. Sometimes I really miss this movie. It was probably one of the best I saw at Sundance. It's a very private film. Maybe the main character is unusual to most people, don't know. But I understand him. He wants to be loved by the girl he loves, he's driven by his feelings. That's what the night buffalo actually represents - the mark, the tattoo of our inner drive that slowly destroys us. It's desire that is not catalyzed. The characters in the movie can neither "tame" it, nor kill it. The whole brotherhood thing plays into all this as well, but I don't wanna go into it. The nudity was a little too much and the pissing scene's weird, but it all fits with the story, the theme. Diego Luna's completely naked, relaxed (call it "openness" if you want). Yet, there's no relief from the "heat" that burns inside. Sex remains somewhere between desire and satisfaction. Probably because he doesn't look for sex, but love. I like this idea. It's an interesting twist on Freud. Maybe we are not driven by sexual, but emotional desires after all.

Guillermo Arriaga, writer of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, returns to Mexico to deliver what can easily be called the biggest disaster in Mexican cinema in years, The Night Buffalo, with Diego Luna in the leading role and a plot involving a schizophrenic man (Gabriel Gonzalez), who commits suicide after his girlfriend (Liz Gallardo) cheats on him with his best friend (Luna).The Night Buffalo, a very promising film, supposedly going to give new light to Mexican cinema fails to impress and even throws our country back a few steps with its awfulness. After the vomit inducing, yet inexplicable box office success KM 31, I was more than ready to experience an upgrade in film-making, what I got was a major letdown, a pointless awkward "drama" filled with unnecessary sex and nudity that was surprisingly close to become a porn flick.I don't understand Arriaga's screenplay... so, he actually wrote all the sex scenes? Wow, what a pervert. The whole film was completely pointless, if I wanted to see Diego Luna nude and screwing around with the whole cast, well there are better films where you can see that. It appears like the filmmakers made the film for the sole reason of watching everyone naked, the movie was about 2 hours long and one of them was sex. So yeah, there are artistic ways of showing nudity and some scripts need it, but this movie didn't need any, it had an interesting plot itself, but it didn't move an inch from the synopsis, nothing interesting ever happened in the film and even after the rushed and ridiculous ending, I was still waiting for something, ANYTHING, to make my time spent on the theater worth it.The movie was unfocused, what was it's objective? The main plot was misused, I was interested in the schizophrenic character, but instead of developing him, they show him naked! And apparently that's the answer to every single question in the film, as none of the characters gets any development, not that we care about what happens to them since they are all worth hating, but at least we expect something to occur. The Night Buffalo should have focused in its audience, their need for an interesting, thrilling, suspenseful story, or maybe just focus on the title's premise shall we? Nothing, we get some nonsense lines here and there, but nothing solid ever sees the light.Diego Luna's role was probably one of the characters I've most hated in all cinema history, how are we supposed to care for a character that betrayed his best friend sleeping with his girlfriend, and then betrayed her, sleeping with his best friend's sister, which is another blow towards his friend, who I can understand wants to kill himself being surrounded by such a disgusting bunch of people. Yuck, this was plain terrible, nothing to save from the film, everything felt awkward and unnecessary, boring as hell and one of the worst movies I've had the displeasure to see. Arriaga has just bought himself a ticket to Crapville, enjoy your stay.