Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

mbrophy1 I know there are not many votes on this film but if there were it certainly would have a higher rating then a 6.0. The acting is excellent all the way around, the numerous plot twists and turns keep the viewer enthralled from beginning to end, and it leaves one with many questions to ponder afterward.As Francis' (Aidan Gillen) emotions begin to unravel it will blow your mind into the unavailing that comes about in the end. If you are a simple minded individual that enjoy movies for the loud explosions and eye candy this one may not be for you. This is in a class of maybe about a dozen movies that I couldn't get out of my head for days after viewing (Requiem for a Dream, Mysterious Skin, There Will Be Blood, American History X, The Machinist, The Wrestler, The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile, The Prestige, Unbreakable, Revolutionary Road, Amores Perros, Happiness) Also Emmanuelle Sieigner may have the sexiest voice/accent that I have ever heard. She's a real babe in this one.Highly Recommended: 9.5/10

Al Rodbell Having just finished seeing this film I came to the message boards for answers, and only found others seeking the same thing. A vivid hallucinatory dream can feel like reality, with the imagery powerful, but undecipherable even to the dreamer. I conclude that this film was of this genre, a nightmare made into a public event, a film to be seen by all who can take it. Given the genre, given that it is valuable for someone to be into someone else's nightmare rather than their own, it is an admirable work of art. We go wrong when we ask for real world logic, where the bodies of large dead men do not disappear, and may not be taken away piece by piece on a bus. Dreams follow no such logic. They are there to allow a reconfiguration of reality into some kind of a resolution.The central riveting element for me was Francis' love affair with Gloria. She was luscious, kind, accepting, admiring and always there for him. (If that's not a clue that this is a dream fantasy, then what is?) His sexual pleasure was best when at a distance, through a telescope, only to be made flesh onto flesh with fear and reluctance on his part.There is a great word "verisimilitude" that describes the degree that a dramatic presentation approximates reality. It is usually considered a necessity, even though each work is allowed a degree of poetic license to vary from this for the purposes of dramatic effect."Buddy Boy," gets zero on the verisimilitude scale of actual life, as Francis is right not to believe that a girl like Gloria could actually love him. But this scale of realism has a different set of rules in nightmare films such as this. The only reality that must be sustained is emotional engagement, a working out of some unknown outside existence through the flashes of imagery that both intrude upon and advance the dream work.Francis, whoever he is when awake, is a suffering human being forsaken by God, family and the world around him. He also has come to believe that Jesus, whom he says gave his life for love of humanity, actually despises him. It is a world of kidnapped children whom he can not save, and vegans who kill and eat human beings.And yet, in the midst of all of this horror, he found someone to love him. No wonder he is reluctant to wake up.

sifl8898 A few years ago, Christmas of 2004 to be exact I was sitting down late at night channel surfing when I stopped on IFC to see that they were having some sort of movie marathon and this movie(Buddy Boy) was just beginning so I figured "Why not? There is nothing else on unless I want to watch A Christmas Story for the 32nd time." So as the movie flows through the opening credits, I am intrigued by the dark atmosphere it is already presenting so I put the remote down and continue to watch. About 20 minutes into the film I am engrossed in the increasingly gloomy mood about the film and the emotionally unstable characters it is presenting to me. Our main character Francis lives with his neglectful couch potato of a mother in an old dingy apartment where he isolates himself from any socialization and spends much time spying on the adjacent apartment through a hole in the wall in the back of his apartment. Throughout these viewings he notices an attractive female and becomes engrossed into continuously watching her until one day by chance they run into each other on the street where she introduces herself as Gloria and her and Francis begin their relationship and this begins the psychological roller coaster that is Buddy Boy.Throughout the film Francis becomes increasingly frustrated with his mother and himself while at the same time builds a closer relationship with Gloria and out of increased interest continues to spy on her through the peephole in his apartment and witnesses a series of disturbing events within her apartment that makes the viewer question the validity of the events or Francis' very own sanity. The excellent thing about this film it is a psychological thriller and it does its job very well continuously making the viewer wonder if what is going on in the screen is either actually happening or our main character is losing his mentality. The film keeps delving deeper into the psychological mess that is Francis and the bizarre events he views in Gloria's apartment which eventually builds up to the final confrontation that has an ending that may very well drive the viewer themselves insane. Overall the movie has a very interesting story that succeeds with superb acting and overall presentation. I highly recommend it to anybody in the mood for an original suspense story or just plainly a good movie.

dwpollar 1st watched 4/5/2007 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Mark Hanlon): Disturbing and fascinating story of a recluse who does nothing except take care of his ailing step mother until he meets his next door neighbor who he happens to be peeping at thru a hole in his basement on a daily basis. The peeping continues despite the fact that she falls in love with him and they spend many evenings together. She openly confesses to being a vegan, but Francis(the recluse) starts seeing things thru his peep hole that makes him think otherwise. Francis's life has been mixed up for awhile. His real mom&dad are dead -- his step mom is crazy & crippled, he lives a mundane life where he goes to work on the same bus everyday and doesn't really interact with people and knows very little about women until his next door neighbor comes along and disrupts his simple boring life. There is also a religious aspect to his life that does nothing but confuse him and gives him somewhere to confess his sins, but does nothing to help him in real life. Despite this, everything is going along OK until his step mom accidentally kills his boyfriend and Francis suspects his neighbor is killing men in her apartment and having a little snacky-poo from the remains(which is technically not being a vegan). OK, now that I've said this much, I still hope you will see this well done independent movie. It's compelling, creepy and a nice study on human existence for a few mixed up people.