Hilarious social commentary

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2005)

Just when self-indulgent, intensely clever, but rather meaningless comedy--supplemented by pot and a rather self-indulgent lifestyle--was beginning to loom large in my tastes (Harold and Kumar, The Office, Trailer Park Boys), along comes Caddyshack and to shatter all of that.
This just might be my pick for the greatest comedy ever made. It's certainly in the Pantheon, along with such greats as Duck Soup, Annie Hall and, perhaps, Harold and Kumar.
Here are the things I love about this film: 1. The allegory for the class system in the US. The setting (a golf course) is ideal for this theme. Unlike in the pathetic flop Happy Gilmore, Caddyshack is as much about the workers who maintain the grounds, and the gulf that separates them from the golfers (who include judges, priests, and businessmen). The caddies are the working class. Some struggle to get out of their predicament, but we're made to understand how hard it is for them. In a brilliant opening dialogue, the caddy hero Danny Noonan says, resignedly, that college costs $8,000/year, that he can't afford it, and that he'll probably end up working in the lumber yard. Chevy Chase's character, for whom Noonan is caddying, responds, "I own two lumber yards". "Yeah, I noticed you don't spend too much time there," answers Danny. "I don't know where they are," responds Chase, totally blasé. This is the regard the golfers have for the caddies.
Then there's the grounds keeper (Bill Murray) who's recruited by the course owner to kill a gopher (that could spell doom to a golf course--the gopher represents the Vietcong). The grounds keeper is even poorer and less educated than the caddies (like soldiers in the Vietnam war?). There are some excellent scenes of him running through forest looking for the gopher. The scene could virtually be cut out of the film and stuck into Platoon. I liked this technique for spelling out the allegory.
But not only do we have workers, soldiers, Vietcong, and the elite all playing the same role on the golf course as in the larger world off the course; there are all kinds of distinctions within each class: Danny Noonan is ostracized by many caddies for trying to suck up to the golfers. Chase and Dangerfield both play eccentric, liberal capitalists who have to contend with conservative Republicans who can't stand to be around "Jews, Roman Catholics, or Blacks". Then there's the division of labor between men and women.
Most importantly, this isn't in the vein of Les Miserables--it doesn't depict the poor as pathetic and as objects of pity. In Caddyshack, we really see the world from the caddies' perspective. We see how hard it is to relate to the rich (and their Harvard-bound sons), to enter their world.
2. The film offers the most idyllic depiction of being 18 I've ever seen. Director Harold Ramis mostly does this through scenes with Danny Noonan and his cute, Scottish girlfriend Maggie and with Noonan facing off against the rival caddy. The scene in which Noonan and his enemy face off in front of the swimming pool offers a stunning depiction of the 18 year-old male body; one of the strongest cases for being gay I've ever seen. He then exploits this beauty to make us dread the oncoming fight: we don't want them to hurt each other for the same reasons we want to preserve the Great Pyramids of Gizah. Ramis exploits this brilliantly by juxtaposing the youthful beauty with intimations that the fight will be brutal and unrestrained.
Maggie is "plain" as compared to the blonde who walks around the course braless. But the sexual scene with her and Danny is far hotter, than those involving the same blonde. And Maggie comes out of that scene the more attractive of the two. Isn't this the way it goes? We think we're attracted to very conventional beauty, but we inevitably realize it's overrated.
3. The musical scenes (the workers' uprising at the pool, Dangerfield driving the yacht) are beautifully choreographed and the music is excellent. In fact, I'd totally listen to the soundtrack.
4. A lot of the jokes are hilarious. Chevy Chase's are my favorite and Bill Murray's good too. Don't be fooled, though. On the surface, Murray's monologues and Dangerfield's one-liners are the meat of the film. In fact, they're only the icing on the cake.