The best ever? Duh .....

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2001)

I FINALLY got around to watching this movie in its entirety. I'd seen bits and pieces of it over the years but never the whole thing all at once. Proud of being the snob that I am, I always considered "Caddyshack" to be about 20 floors beneath my cultured dignity.
Having seen it, I now have come to IMDb to vote on it and to comment on it. I've noticed, first, that a few commenters think this is the best movie ever made. Or, at the very least, the best COMEDY ever made. Conversely, 6,262 voters (to date, counting me) rate this movie at only 6.9 out of 10. Which means that the "silent majority" think "Caddyshack" is just an OK movie. And I'm with the latter group. "Caddyshack" does have its moments, a few of them quite funny, but overall, it's just OK.
Let's face it. There are only four people in this movie: Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight and Bill Murray. All the other actors and actresses who are in it, young and old alike, are thrown in just to fill in empty holes in the screen. Or to say something when all of The Big Four are debating among themselves as to who has the next one-liner. And usually it's Dangerfield, who tosses out one-liners as if he's throwing rice at a wedding. Most people would probably say his character (Al Czervik) is the funniest in this movie. Not say me. My vote goes to Bill Murray (Carl Spackler -- what a name!), who plays an absolutely insane assistant keeper of the greensward at the uppity Bushwood Country Club. This guy couldn't get a clue if Vanna White herself were handing them out for free, which makes his character all the more lovable in this movie.
There is one classic scene where Chevy Chase (Ty Webb), in preparation for an important match upcoming with the snooty Judge Smails (Ted Knight), is working on his golf game -- in the middle of the night! He accidentally knocks his ball into Spackler's -- uh -- "living quarters." In the course of attempting to get Spackler's permission to "play thru," the two of them have the most inane conversation you could possibly imagine.
I can imagine that Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill's brother), Harold Ramis and Douglas Kenney, the three co-writers, must have had great fun writing the script (such as it is) for this movie. I can picture the three of them, in many late-night writing sessions, trying to top each other's one-liners -- and the more lowbrow the one-liners, the better.
Though the movie does have, as I've said, some funny lines and scenes, it is mostly just a "cut-and-run" from one scene to the next -- unrelated -- gag or scene. If one appreciates a COMPLETE movie of this type -- and from this era (1980ish, give or take a few) -- one would do much better with the likes of "Animal House," "Airplane" or "Ghostbusters."
Don't forget! "Caddyshack" is the type of movie that attracts those people who are attracted to the lowbrow in almost anything. The "Best Ever" movie? No. The "Best Comedy Ever"? I don't think so. Remember, those members of the cultured intelligentsia, such as myself, rarely stoop to the level of a "Caddyshack." It really is beneath us. But if one does so stoop, one will actually find a few laughs therein. What a surprise!