Buffalo Rider

Consider yourself warned as this movie definitely cannot post that 'no animals were hurt during the making of this film'. I honestly think a lot of the actors and the one baby in this film were also probably hurt during the making of this film. This film is quite rough, suffice to say as it is almost a cross between a nature documentary and a movie. A movie that lectures us on how the buffalo were hunted to near extinction, but literally looks like the people in the film are gunning live buffalo down!

The story, what story? Literally, we get a narrator talking about buffalo and hunters for a while and then Buffalo Jones is introduced and he is apparently the Buffalo Rider of the title, but he is never referred to this in the film, but rather as Buffalo Jones, whose main skills seems impaired judgement as he has a horse, but wants to ride a buffalo, who sees these men and can tell they are dangerous, but lets himself get shot anyway. Then we witness a raccoon in a frolicking adventure battling a cougar which tries to drown the raccoon who then gets swept up in a huge flood and then a babies parents are killed and old Buffalo Jones is going to rescue said child right after he punches a cougar in the face!

The film is just crazy. The lead guy looks like a cross from a dude in a rock band and Donald Sutherland and the bad guys just stop in here and there to make it seem like the film is just not an animal nature documentary gone awry. If it were a nature doc, the animals fighting each other would be just nature's way, but in this film, we have bears fighting and you know the makers got them to fight, you have buffalo trampling wolves and several other instances of animal cruelty going on.

So, the film is rough if you cannot stand the sight of animals in pain. I can watch it, knowing that the animals would be long dead even if they were not subjected to this, but some of the scenes definitely made me wince; especially that bear fight. Just not sure why a film like this was made as it is about a man that loves animals, but then the animals that were used were definitely mistreated.

Buffalo rider tells the story of Jake Jones, a man who asks a question that most of us have probably already asked ourselves; what would happen if I attempted to ride a buffalo? The answer is, "It would make an incredibly terrible movie". Buffalo Rider appears to be made from two separate film crews who did not communicate with each other and then threw together all of their footage at the last minute and tried to form a movie out of it. It's part Western, part nature documentary, but ALL bad.

There is no doubt in my mind that most of the plot was constructed after filming took place. The reason why people ride horses instead of buffalo is because buffalo do whatever the hell they want; there are plenty of scenes where the narrator says something like, "Well, Jake wanted to (insert thing or place Jake wanted to do or go), but Samson (the buffalo), decided that he wanted to (insert place or direction Samson was currently going)." Samson the buffalo just does whatever he wants; walking back and forth and going up and down hills with no direction or consistency to the movie's "plot". In once scene the narrator literally says, "Samson decided to try to scrape Jake off his back", to try to explain why the star of the movie just got slammed into a fir tree.

Here's an interesting thought; at one point in time, either the writer of the directer of this film said, "I don't care how or why, but I want us to put a raccoon in the middle of a frozen river and then break open a dam upstream so we can watch the raccoon get swept away in the ensuing flood." You think I'm joking? What if I told you that this movie features not one, but THREE different raccoons struggling to not drown in three different scenes? There is SO much wrong with this movie. At one point it actually pulls a Beerfest, where a character in the film is killed (thus giving our "hero" motivation for revenge), and is replaced by the same actor playing a different character. Oh, and there is blatant animal abuse everywhere. You think an animal-struggling-to-survive-a-flood scene would be hard to watch? Well then get ready for the "Animal A Attempting to Drown Animal B by Holding Animal B's Head Underwater" scene! It's fun for the whole family! ESPECIALLY if the whole family loves watching buffalo being shot dead, because this movie has PLENTY of that! If you want to watch this movie, watch the Rifftrax version (google it), as that is the only version worth watching.

I saw the inspiring youtube short "Guy on a Buffalo" and without a doubt this is the greatest single piece of cinema ever created. Everyone's life is richer for it having been made. I cannot wait for the inevitable sequel, and pray that it doesn't involve too much CG. The morality of Buffalo Rider is sure to be lost should the effects be updated in the fashion of the Star Wars movies. I only pray that someone somewhere has suitable trivia to eventually provide for this masterpiece of American cinema. Where did the cougar come from? What did the wolf have to do with anything? What was the nature of the relationship between Buffalo and man. Was it ahead of it's time? I daresay any man who says otherwise should be buffaloed. As they say, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Buffalo Jones (1844–1919)was a real person who worked to preserve the American bison and may be the inspiration for this fictional film. He was the first Game Warden of Yellowstone Park and one of the Founders of Garden City, Kansas home of Buffalo Jones Elementary School whose goal is "To create a community of competent bilingual, bi-literate, and culturally sensitive learners."

chiefmusician87 asked if it is possible to still see this movie; it is in the Public Domain and available on Youtube.

The epic saloon shoot-out is not to be missed and can be viewed by googling "Guy On A Buffalo - Episode 4: Finale Part 2", adapted with new narration and music by the bluegrass band, The Possum Posse.

When I was 6 years old my grandfather took me to see this movie. The only scene I remember is a fight scene in a bar where the buffalo came in and kicked a bunch of people around. I assume that it probably stunk since I have never heard of it since, but it still holds a couple of good memories for me. The next year my grandfather died. This is a morbid comment huh? Does anyone know if it is possible to still see this move? I wouldn't think so, but who knows. Thanks for reading. I had read somewhere that this movie was based on a true story. I really can't imagine a real guy riding a buffalo around, but it was in Oregon so I quess they had "tree huggers" all the way back in the 1800's.