Stripes

Stripes

Sometimes movies think too hard. They get bogged down in plot and end up getting in their own way by becoming overcomplicated. These movies need to sit down, take a breath, and ask simple questions, like: "What if Bill Murray joined the army?" which ended up being enough for people to discuss to this day. But does it hold up?

Bill Murray lost his job, car, apartment, and girlfriend all on the same day. His best friend Harold Ramis is kinda bored. Together, they decide to join the army because they think it'll be funny. This is where Ed Wood's "suspension of disbelief" has to come in, because otherwise the movie does not work. They go to the army and two military policewomen immediately have crushes on the two goofballs (again, suspension of disbelief). Much like Full Metal Jacket, we spend what we think is going to be the whole movie at boot camp, but while Full Metal Jacket's boot camp sequence was only about half an hour, this is an entire movie's worth of content. Then, after an hour and a half, the movie goes rogue and decides to keep going, becoming a Star Wars-esque rescue mission. It's very weird.

I've talked before about how I don't really care for the classic National Lampoon films like Animal House and Caddyshack because they feel like footage of a party that I didn't actually go to and therefore have a natural distance from, and while this isn't as extreme as those examples it does still go into that territory. It's clear that the actors are having fun improvising and being generally zany, but so much of it is being directed inward that I have a hard time catching those laughs. Arguably there aren't any jokes at all in the whole movie, the humor comes entirely from wacky behavior, which is tough to fill two hours with.

Obviously Bill Murray is great as Bill Murray, which might be all people thought he was capable of doing at the time, (since I believe this was before Tootsie and certainly before Ed Wood, Rushmore, and Lost in Translation) but he's so charming and cool as himself that it's hard not to be satisfied on his personality alone. Harold Ramis is Harold Ramis, which also works because of his own unique brand of nerdy charming coolness, but the truly great performance comes from John Candy, who was not really known at the time and justifiably broke out with this role. Candy has such an instant lovability to him that he can be in the middle of a sleazy, uncomfortable, fairly gross mud wrestling scene where he appears to be actively beating up women, and it's just so hard to be mad at him because of how effortlessly sweet and hilarious he is.

The movie has the unfortunate 80's-party-animal-movie trope of women not being actual characters but instead just being prizes and/or things to have sex with. The matching love interests for Murray and Ramis are clearly solid actresses and they bring as much personality as they can to their characters, but they still come off as two-dimensional sex objects despite being military police. And that mud wrestling scene really is gross, no exaggeration there.

My note would normally be to cut the last half hour and the depressing mud wrestling scene so that the movie is shorter, smoother, and more fun, but those are actually the things I remember the best. I  miss movies not being afraid to have a few scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the plot, because, as this movie proves, those often end up being the most memorable moments. In the specific case of this film I wish these diatribes were of higher quality, but I can appreciate it for what it is.

Overall I'm not quite sure why this film is still talked about today. While it hasn't reached the legendary status of Animal House, it's still relevant enough to be referenced in modern film and television, which means it's still floating around in peoples' heads. Maybe it's because of the bizarre plotless scenes, the improvised feel, or the charismatic actors just playing themselves, but there's something about this movie that's caused it to remain in the public conscious after all these decades. I personally didn't get much from it and can't really recommend it, but its status as a classic comedy sort of takes that out of my hands. Check it off your list if it's on there, but just don't come in expecting much.