In Buffalo 66, Vincent Gallo looks like a late-seventies Bruce Springsteen. He also looks like a thirty-something Jesus Christ. The former observation is relevant; the latter is not. But it's always good to stay observant.

Springsteen's late-seventies persona--as exemplified in his records Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River--emerged on the other side of the desperate hope in 1975's Born to Run and struggled to understand the consequences of escape from the past and the cost of pursuing your dreams. The characters had hit the open road, kept on drivin' all night, and found naked fear in the morning after. There is very little hope on those records, but the hope that does emerge is entirely earned, never bestowed by circumstance or class standing. The lead character in Buffalo 66,Billy Brown (Gallo), is hopeless as well, trapped like Springsteen's characters in a life situation that he believes is unescapable. He's been raised in a hate-filled home, with precious little true connection between parents and son. For the past several years, he's been in prison after taking a fall for a bookie's assistant. He's lied to his parents the entire time, writing letters from jail claiming that he has a wife and kids and works for the government. So upon his release, what more can he do than to kidnap a young girl and force her to pretend to be his wife during a dinner at home?

Sounds like he's made his own bed and now must lie in it. But when you're hopeless, when there is no escape, there is no such thing as creating your own situation. That's what Springsteen was trying to convey in his darkest moments, and that's what director and screenwriter Gallo is trying to convey in Buffalo 66. The lies that have built around Billy Brown's existence-the "lie" of his parents' love, the "lie" of a happy upbringing, the "lie" of his marriage and children-are tightly bound up with his place in the world. He doesn't have the luxury of avoidance that others possess. It could be simply his perception, but it is as it is. He feels trapped, therefore he is trapped. The momentum and tension simmering at the heart of Billy's life start to subconsciously build from the beginning of Buffalo 66, when Brown leaves prison and spends the first fifteen minutes of the film trying to find a bathroom, holding his urine past any comfortable point. Pressure continues to build within him, as he argues with his father and contemplates murder to ease his anguished mind. But the tension never suffers a tragic release; Billy finds love, he believes in it, and it eases his mind.

Buffalo 66 is a film about hopelessness, and what it means to find something that turns all your lies into truths. Billy finds escape in love; it's a shitty clich«, but it truly sets him free. It's not necessarily a deserved redemption; Brown has done little to deserve the love of the woman he's kidnapped (Christina Ricci). And yet he finds it, or maybe it finds him. Ricci's character desperately wants Brown, but we never learn why. She believes he's a good man at heart, perhaps. But this isn't about her love for Billy. It's about Billy finally accepting that he's a worthwhile human being, and embracing hope and potential for the first time in his life. He denies Ricci any true connection until the last moments of the film, when at a moral crossroads he takes the road less travelled, and denies his rage in favor of understanding. It's then that he realizes the opportunity he has to take control of his life, an opportunity that will find its birth in his love for Ricci.

Gallo's direction is innovative and at times distracting. His disorienting shots of the Brown family dinner table from each person's perspective are clever, but he overuses a "picture in picture" device, in which small "movies" appear within the larger context of the screen. He's fortunate to have found such a tremendous cast, including Ricci in another breakout performance and Ben Gazarra as his bitter, moody father. These supporting characters serve their purpose well; they help guide us into Billy Brown's mind, where we sit and drink in his tension and anger until its ultimate escape.

As Buffalo 66 opens, Billy Brown is trapped within a darkness on the edge of town. By the end of the movie, he's finally born to run. It's a reverse order than that which we're used to, but the journey between the two sensibilities conjures some intense filmmaking.