 Stephen Holden called it an "ugly fable of American free enterprise at the bottom of the food chain," adding, "With its staccato, profanity-laced language and metaphorically potent setting, "American Buffalo" folds a stylized parody of American gangster movies into a bleak Samuel Beckett vision that is wide enough to accommodate many interpretations...In filming "American Buffalo", Mr. Corrente has taken as conventionally naturalistic an approach as the play permits, playing down its social metaphors to concentrate on the characters' psychology.