by MATTHEW HAYS

America finds itself in an odd position as we go to press. Its government has declared that the Iraq War is over. But the country is still losing an average of a soldier a day to angry Iraqis there who, for whatever reason, don't see the Americans as their liberators. Thus America is losing its soldiers to a struggle for peace, or so the Bush Administration says.

It's one of those absurdities that always seem to follow war along, but in Buffalo Soldiers, the excellent new film based on the novel by Robert O'Connor, the suggestion is that the absurdity is inherent in the military itself, even in peacetime. Set in that key moment in the '80s when peace seemed to be breaking out all over and the Cold War was finally at an end, Buffalo Soldiers centres on one young military man, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who opts to moonlight by illegally hocking anything he can syphon away from the army base, from Mop and Glo to home-made crack. Phoenix deals all sorts of dope to his fellow soldiers, all of whom are bored out of their minds while posted in West Germany. If there's a purposelessness to their existences, they know it, and are doing their best to numb themselves accordingly. O'Connor's novel was unrelenting in its scathing depiction of what happens when army types are cut loose: these soldiers are amoral, suffer no guilt at loss of life and act as their boot camp instructors have taught them to: inhuman. Filmmaker Gregor Jordan, laudably, has kept this key sense from the book intact.

Amid all this comes some of the darkest comedy I've witnessed in a long time. Beautifully coated, Buffalo Soldiers is soaked in an intelligent cynicism that makes you cringe as you laugh. Phoenix is certainly no role model, but he does his best to navigate through - and, more importantly, survive - an every-man-for-himself mindset. His trek through this minefield is a perfect antidote to CNN's seemingly never-ending flag waving. It also happens to make for a great movie.

Buffalo Soldiers opens Friday, Aug. 15

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