Buffalo Boys

What Buffalo Boys lacks in originality it makes up for in spirit. There’s a verve in Wiluan’s direction, a sense of joy shaping his approach to the tried and true familial vengeance hook.

For the most part, Buffalo Boys is a decent folk tale, despite Lee and Wiluan's periodic application of "Game of Thrones"-style sensationalism.

Leveraging highly polished production values evoking the Old West with detailed sets, authentic weapons and period costumes, Wiluan gets enough of the details right so that the genre’s typical characteristics blend fairly seamlessly with the Indonesian adventure yarn.

Buffalo Boys is a messy, interesting, fun romp in cross-cultural interplay.

This is a film that often feels more assembled than directed, crucially lacking the sheer verve that would enable it to transcend the influences that it proudly wears on its dusty sleeve.

Buffalo Boys is rather tedious going in between the fights, and those action beats are spaced too far apart.

While a few fun martial arts scenes pepper the effort, they are subsumed by an overall product that is riddled with plot holes, choppy cuts, laughable acting, and villains so evil that they’d make Skeletor blush.