Stripes (1981)

I love the comedy of Bill Murray, Harold Ramos and John Candy, but this movie is boring for the most part. It has inconsistencies, such as why the two main characters don't have their head shaved, which it never explains, while everyone else does. News flash: the military shaves everyone's head in boot camp, it doesn't matter how popular or well known you are. The comedy was subpar at best. Maybe movies just sucked the year this one came out which is why it's rated so high.

This is not funny. It is awful. It has an awful story line. Not that people who like comedy movie care at all about a good story line. Has long they laugh. And it really does not have to be funny or people to laugh. People will laugh long before they will cry. Tell people to laugh and will laugh. Tell them cry and they will laugh ever more. If you are some who only like comedies that are really funny and have good story line see Ghost busters. If you some one I just will like any thing at is a comedy. Then you will like. this movie. Most people like something just because it a comedy. If that were not case this movie would not be so popular. This movie a piece of pooh. And if you can not see that. That is your problem not mines.

If you haven't seen it and you're not sure if you want to, stop reading right now and sit down for an evening of silly nostalgic humour.For those of you have seen it, you know how much this film has to offer in hilarity. Filmed just a year before I was born, this movie was always on the shelf at home, and when the parents were out, my brothers and I would put this on and laugh our butts off! Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Candy, and plenty of other well known actors started their cinema roots with this off kilter homage to a military that was still pristine in image and was known for making men out of even the most wimpy souls in America.If you had nowhere else to go, no ambition, or nothing better to do, the army would put you through basic and make a man out of you! It was the perfect stage for a comedy like this one. A bunch of life's miscreants join up for their own individual and mostly stupid reasons, and come together to form one of the worst, miss-guided and downright terrible troops the U.S military ever produced. Not for lack of trying however, it's just... when you get bunch of lemons, it's hard to make champagne.The jokes are silly of course, some fall flat, and most are out dated by most comedic standards, but that is what makes it so damn good! And for some reason this movie has like... 6 acts (It's a bit like 2 movies in one to be honest, the original in the first half, and a sequel covering the second half of the film). Yet it still holds its edge and lightheartedness against the rude and crude comedies of the 2000 era.Grab a few beers, sit down, and try to remember that there was life before terrorism, mortgage bubbles, and Justin Bieber.6/10

Stripes is that naughty, irreverent slob comedy which laid down the template for movies like Police Academy.Set in the early 1980s, John (Bill Murray) is a slobbish, slacker cab driver who gets fired for taking an old lady on a hair raising spin to the airport. He also gets dumped by his girlfriend. Russell (Harold Ramis) is unmotivated as an English teacher to new immigrants.Somehow John persuades Russell that life would be better if they joined the army although Murray with his receding hairline looks too old to be a new recruit.During basic training they meet the larger than life Ox (John Candy) dim Cruiser (John Diehl) and trying to get them into shape is stern Sgt Hulka (Warren Oates.)The platoon leader is incompetent Capt Stillman (John Larroquette) who spends more time as a Peeping Tom.John riles Sgt Hulka very early on and his recruits look very unlikely to pass basic training especially when Hulka is involved in an incident when Stillman ends up injuring him.Despite their incompetence John and Russell manage to charge two female Military Police officers Stella (PJ Soles) and Louise (Sean Young).Murray and Ramis underplay their characters and you see underneath the genesis of characters that they would go on to play in Ghostbusters.The big problem with the film is the script is too scattered and despite the abundance of t & a it is not funny enough. Animal House had some amusing set pieces and an underlying satire about Frat Houses and its linked with social status.Stripes see Murray making not very clever or funny quips which sets him at odds with Sgt Hulka and gets his squad into bother. If I had to do a 10 miles run instead of a 5 miles one on my first day in the army, I would had given Murray a good kicking and the rest of the troops will had joined me.The third act where they squad goes to Europe to test a new vehicle which John and Russell borrow to go off with their girlfriends is even more silly but just tagged on so they can be accidental heroes and Stillman can get his comeuppance.Of course looking back at it this was just an updated version of the first ever Carry On film made in Britain in the 1950s.