A classic!

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2002)

This movie will never get old, like "Airplane!", it's a comedy classic. The best part about it is it took some of America's top comic actors when they were at the prime of their careers and built a comedy that's more than just the sum of its parts. I mean, just having Bill Murray or Rodney Dangerfield in a movie, even a mediocre one, guarantees you will laugh, but this film features these two, along with Chevy Chase and Ted Knight, in what is arguably each man's funniest effort.
As with most comedies, the plot is pretty much incidental to the film itself. In this case, it's centered on a young caddy who can't afford to go to college, so he is forced to suck up to the head of the country club (Ted Knight) in an effort to get his blessing for a caddy scholarship. His golf mentor is a rich heir (Chevy Chase, back when he was still funny) who's into "Zen golf" and gives Danny advice like "Be the ball" and "A donut with no hole is a Danish". To complicate matters, a real estate developer (Rodney Dangerfield) shows up with his entourage, looking, not to join the club but instead to buy it. This is the setup for the rest of the film. From the start, the expansive, profane, boorish Dangerfield character clashes with the anal, rigid, and tantrum-prone club president, Judge Smails. And, in the background, Bill Murray is the groundskeeper who's been ordered to kill all the gophers on the course. Of course, this order comes from his Scottish boss, a man with an accent as thick as Guinness Stout, and Murray's character Carl, replies "But if I kill all the golfers, they'll lock me up and throw away the key!"
Anyway, that's the basic premise. What makes this movie work are the lead actors, as well as first rate scriptwriting. You normally wouldn't think of a golf course as being the scene for great comedy, but with this bunch, anything goes. There's tons of great dialog; Judge Smails "Danny, I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to, but I felt I owed it to them", Dangerfield to a woman at the club "Last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it!", Carl to gopher "Don't mind me, I'm just a harmless squirrel, not a plastic explosive or something", and on and on. There's great physical comedy, especially when Rodney goes berzerk with his massive yacht, crashing into anything and everything in sight, and Ted Knight, whose eyes seem to bulge of of their sockets at least once a minute. In short, it's a comic classic that was hilarious 20 years ago, and is still funny every time I watch it now. A must see! 10 out of 10