Buffalo Boys is, at its core, an Indonesian hybrid action film that breaks into two disparate parts a brutal martial arts flick and a shocking western. Set in the mid-1860s, ancient Indonesians Jamar and Suwo, played by Ario Bayu and Yoshi Sudarso respectively, return to Java seeking vengeance for their father's murder – the kindly Sultan Hamza. The plot in and around Buffalo Boys is straightforward without needing more explanation but as the title crawl hints at there is more. Simply put, accounts of oppression, violence and sorrow are termed folklore which is one of those many stories where truth mingles with fabrication. That truly captures what writer-director Mike Wiluan together with his co-writer Raymond Lee set out to do. While Lee and Wiluan seemed to try to take the folk tale past mere shock value – which succeeded to some extent – it seemed like Buffalo Boys had everything placed exactly where it was intended to be simple yet beautiful,something many films today fail at doing.

For Buffalo Boys, it seems like Wiluan and Lee are having difficulty with the movie’s editing sequence as opposed to following the storyline. In order to support this claim, Jamar and Suwo are siblings who live outside of the real world; rather, they exist in a fictional universe—action movies.

When they come back to Java, there are certain villains that they pick out to ethically engage in battle with. During their return they also display young reckless behaviors. One example is when Uncle Arana (Tio Pakusadewo) helps them teach bare-handed fighting while secretly trained on a train in California. Women want to date Jamar and Suwo because he makes the brothers laugh after bathing in a well-known spring, fresh water shower. He does not need sunscreen unlike men who want to be Shuwar and Jamars. The slimy highway robber and the political schemer Fakar (Alex Abbad) may not tell the brothers “You and me, we’re not so different” but he can without uttering those exact words.

The critique has some merit, but I definitely do not subscribe to the idea that a film provides audiences with unnerving clues leading up to its watching. Alike many movies, males of any nature tend to be slayed or lose their life with great violence and epic sound effects, while most females undergo verbal and physical abuse. One woman is even lashed and bleeds from her back. Some elements of this are quite difficult to process, or for lack of a better phrase, make sense. There is one term that encapsulates what I am trying to explain which is akin to Game of Thrones where an important character dies in the first episode of a new season or book and then comes back in the following episode. It does matter because these segments, what I consider parts, constitute a whole in my mind which have been smashed together such that there is no reasonable flow. The imagery surrounding Buffalo Boys strikes me as interesting within themselves but without more contextual grace on how they fit into the storyline, they feel incomplete disjointed as this film makes them appear.

The fight scenes were even more impactful because of the use of rhythmic and dynamic sound editing. The only critique I have for these action scenes they are a reason to watch **Buffalo Boys** is the lack of volume. Undoubtedly, the highlight in my opinion is “The First Fight” which takes place on a train; it is arguably the best scene in the film.

Fortunately, there are many well crafted moments within **Buffalo Boys**, including its over-the-top final showdown. In my view, there aren’t enough scenes like that in Buffalo Boys and they deserve at least an extremely guarded recommendation. It isn't exactly what could have been yet at times, Buffalo Boys manages to exceed the expectations of all those tuning into it.

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