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The long and noble lineage includes Buck Privates, Caught in the Draft and Jumping Jacks, not to mention Webb's The D.I. "Part of a lost and restless generation," Bill Murray's smartass cabbie is a bravura turn soundly founded on Groucho but with a distinct post-Saturday Night Live hipster disdain. ("I don't think I've ever been this happy in my entire life," he deadpans after getting his boots shined.) In short order he loses his job, car, girlfriend and pizza, and then his self-respect as he nearly dies trying to do five pushups. A recruitment ad on TV is just the thing after a lousy day, off to the barracks he goes with fellow schlub Harold Ramis. The platoon of underdog dogfaces also includes Judge Reinhold's head-bobbing stoner, Conrad Dunn's adroit tribute to Travis Bickle, and John Candy's sweet-natured Ollie, who finds his Stan in the resident hayseed (John Diehl) and his "aggression-training" mojo in a bikini mud-wrestling pit. Despite the Animal House vibes, it's really a military pamphlet: The company captain (John Larroquette) may play with toy soldiers but the sergeant (Warren Oates) is a tough-yet-fair papa, given a war hero's sendoff. Vietnam is a forgotten chapter, this is Reagan's Good Army—when Ivan Reitman needs to storm the Eastern Bloc in a Winnebago equipped with missiles, he has the official okey-dokey for dozens of tanks and explosions. (By the time An Officer and a Gentleman rolls in, any suggestion of burlesque has melted away.) Still, Murray's insouciant Sixties-style clowning survives in the Eighties, blessedly ensuring that patriotism doesn't have to exclude the joys of tickling P.J. Soles with an ice-cream scoop. With Sean Young, John Voldstad, Lance LeGault, Anthony Pagan, Roberta Leighton, Joe Flaherty, and Dave Thomas.
--- Fernando F. Croce |