BUFFALO Soldiers was ready to attack in 2001. After 9/11 and all that, the American psyche could no longer stand up to any mockery of its methods of self-protection, particularly if that enemy came from within.

Now it is all too clear why this smart, anarchic black comedy about military excess rather than success was shelved until the United States had buffed up its ego once more. The anti-authoritarian Buffalo Soldiers is not a pretty picture, but an alarmingly humorous one.

The setting is West Germany, 1989, the Cold War is on the thaw, and military manoeuvres on the US army base in Stuttgart are but a deterrent chore. War is hell, but peace is boring, says the movie's arch narrator and edgy anti-hero, the smart but very naughty Special Operative Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix). Around him, soldiers are turning into junkies with nothing to kill but time, and Elwood is only too happy to be feeding their habit.

In a spectacular Coen Brothers-style opening, he has a recurring nightmare of falling through air, but right now he is on the rise, with three reasons to love Germany: his Mercedes car, no speed limits on the autobahn and the black market in anything he can get his hands on. He is rolling in Rolex, dealing in stolen military weapons and munitions and running a chemical factory producing heroin from within the barracks.

He is already entertaining his colonel's wife with his bedside manner too, but when a Vietnam veteran Sergeant (lean, mean Scott Glenn) starts getting heavy, the two men with equally self-destructive egos are set on a collision course.

Australian director Gregor Jordan adopts a slightly smug tone but imagine Kelly's Heroes crossed with Sgt Bilko, and Buffalo Soldiers is a ballsy blast. War, what is it good for?

Updated: 12:00 Friday, July 18, 2003