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Biloxi BluesRating:
Release Date: 27 January, 2004 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $13.48 You SAVE: $1.50! Cast: Complete Cast (7 total) |
Biloxi Blues Reviews
Coming of Age
This is a good movie and I feel secure in giving it a 4 Star rating. The writing is as good as you would expect from Neil Simon and the acting fits in at about the same level. It is the story of a group of young men entering Boot Camp in the waning months of WWII. The movie starts out awkwardly on a train ride taking the young men to their new home deep in the south. There didn't seem to be any rhythym to the interaction of the men. It wasn't until after the movie that I realized that the writer and/or director probably wanted us to see it that way. After all, these men did not know each other and they were, thus, more uncomfortable being in the setting than we were watching it.
Arrival at Boot Camp introduces us to the Sergeant (played excellently by Christopher Walken). He becomes, for most of the movie, the villan and what a villan he is. Four or five men of the platoon become the focus of the rest of the movie. The main one is obviously the Neil Simon character played well by Matthew Broderick. A fellow Jewish soldier named Epstein plays an interesting role and the others fit into the standard army camp fellows. There is a "rite of passage" extended scene in which the Broderick character loses his virginity to a local professional. Many will come away enjoying this scene as well as any other in the movie. The subject of death comes up at one point and five of the men vote on who has the best idea of how they would spend their final few days. Another soldier joins in the contest later on in the movie. This becomes significant because we discover that two of the men's fantasies come true in the movie. There are social issues that arise and are dealt with (somewhat) that help put some extra meaning into the film. There is a climatic scene that gives a level of suspense to the movie. In the end, the soldiers depart on a train in much the same uncomfortable interaction that they came in with. All and all this movie is time well spent. Those who have been in the military will get special meaning from this, I would guess.
I have seen this movie rated 5 stars and I decided to view it after reading an old review that was pretty enthusiastic. My only question to those that rate it 5 stars is, "What, then, do you rate a truly great movie when you've already given the top rating to this very good movie?" One final note: I was surprized to read the PR notes on the cover of the VHS version I saw. The reference to romance seemed to have been written by someone who didn't see the movie. In addition, the events were listed as taking place in 1943. This was a major error in that the movie actually takes place in 1945 and the war in the Pacific ends before the men finish basic training. Thus the "What happens to..?" part at the end refers to civilian jobs the men later take rather than a list of casualties.
A walk down memory lane for WWII veterans.
I showed this movie to my Dad, who is a WWII veteran, and he found it very amusing and nostalgic, althought he claimed that he NEVER saw a drill Sargeant like Sgt. Toomey. The movie is an adaptation of a play written by Neil Simon about his experiences in the army at the end of WWII. No it is not a war movie, since it takes place in basic training camp in Biloxi Mississippi. It is really a quaint and humorous little movie about the adventures and attitudes of a bunch of boys in their late teens, who have been unfortunate enough to get drafted into the army. This is a fairly common theme in movies, and a fairly timeless subject.
Jerome (Neil Simon) is a kid from New York who aspires to be a writter, and enjoys observing the antics of his post-adolescent commrades from a writters point of view. We see an excellent dynamic between the various types of boys who are thrown together into the same platoon, and an excellent dynamic between them and their nutty drill Sargeant (played by Christopher Walken) who has sustained a brain injury in North Africa. There is an excellent scene where the boys go on 48 hour pass, lose their virginity to a local part-time prostitute who works from home, and then go to a USO dance where Jerome falls in love with a girl for the first time. It is a wonderful contrast to see Jerome innocently falling in love with a Catholic school girl that he is having a slow dance with, while awkwardly trying to hide the fact that he has just lost his virginity moments before to a prostitute a few doors away.
It's not Neil Simon's greatest work by any means, in fact it's probably one of his worst. But then again it IS Neil Simon we are talking about, and even his worst work is pretty damned amusing. Overall I'd give the humour a six on a scale of ten, and the "aww isn't that cute" factor a nine. Be warned though, it is a cute movie, but it DOES contain a lot of blue language. The sex scenes are handled with discression.
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