Terrible truth of a GI

As a lifelong fan of The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sergeant Bilko) and the son of a GI, I have more than a passing interest in movies that satirise the US military.

Trading on the legacy of M*A*S*H, Catch-22 and Three Kings, Gregor Jordan's muchdelayed film spills on to the screen with venomous wit. The fact that it is ultimately revealed as the poor cousin of a singularly dysfunctional family of movies is not to diminish its achievement.

Buffalo Soldiers takes its title from the 9th and 10th Cavalry units, established after the Civil War, composed entirely of African-American soldiers. Existing for the past three decades of the 19th century, they subdued Mexican revolutionaries and native Americans on the western frontier, and it was the native Americans who nicknamed them because - in the eyes of Cheyenne and Comanche, at least - their African hair resembled the woolly heads of buffalo.

As an image it suggests outsider, and Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is nothing if not an outsider. Given the choice between prison and the army, Elwood becomes a specialist in the 317th Supply Battalion stationed in Stuttgart in 1989.

Elwood is this year's Milo Minderbinderan opportunist in uniform and a thoroughly unscrupulous rogue who abuses his position in the army by requisitioning supplies and selling them on Germany's thriving black market. His worst offence is to cook morphine supplies into heroin and sell it to a local drug lord.

Like Bilko, Elwood can twist his naive commander Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) around his little finger, allowing him both to continue his criminal activities unhindered and service the sexual needs of the colonel's wife.

His scams and undercover dealings are only threatened by the arrival of Sergeant Lee (Scott Glenn), a grizzled Vietnam veteran who has Elwood in his sights. They engage in a none-toosubtle-battle of wills: Elwood dates Lee's daughter (Anna Paquin in trash mode) and Lee retaliates by using Elwood's BMW for target practice.

Meanwhile, two truckloads of arms and ammunition have fallen into Elwood's hands and he sees the chance of making enough money to retire and live a life of ease.

Jordan brings a scrofulous, abrasive charm to the proceedings. The sheer boredom and incompetence of a military base on friendly foreign soil are captured quickly in the opening scenes. The chronic abuse of drugs and alcohol is scarily illustrated by a trio of junked-up tank personnel who lose control of their vehicle in a sequence of charred black humour.

But once Elwood and Lee finally confront each other in a hand-to-hand battle of deviant machismo, the satire gives way to simpler, less effective action hysterics.