Buffalo Soldiers

Buffalo Soldiers (2002) is a pitch-black military comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Gregor Jordan and led by Joaquin Phoenix alongside Ed Harris and Scott Glenn. The setting is a U.S. Army base near Stuttgart, late 1989 — the Cold War is winding down, the Berlin Wall is about to go, and the soldiers have absolutely nothing to do.

Ray Elwood keeps himself busy. His official title is company clerk; his real occupation is running a thriving black market out of the base's own warehouses. When he and his crew stumble onto a stockpile of missiles and warheads, business gets considerably more interesting — and considerably more dangerous. The situation gets worse when a new, incorruptible sergeant (Scott Glenn) rolls in and takes an immediate dislike to Elwood, who has meanwhile started dating the sergeant's daughter (Anna Paquin).

The film was already finished before September 2001, and American distributors sat on it for two years because the satire hit too close to home. That reluctance is its own kind of endorsement: Buffalo Soldiers treats boredom as the true enemy and the institution itself as the joke. Stream it online on iFILM.