This is a fun movie, but it is not art.

Rating: 3/10 (10 November 1999)

Who can't help but to like this film? It has a rugged, square-jawed hero, bad guys (not just Nazis, but the French who would betray their own country to the Nazis), a pretty girl (very pretty), exotic locales, and lines that everyone can recite, a la Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lots of fun. However, the fact that this is on the IMDB top 250 is sad. There are at least 250 films better than it (notice I say "better than" not "that I like more," nor "that you like more"). Degustibus non disputandus est. I will grant that. However, art has tougher criteria than "I like it, and my opinion counts because I am Me!" Casablanca is a disjointed muddle of a film. It is cliche ridden, as subtle as a ton of dynamite, and does not come close to true masterpieces of film art. Want to see a good wartime film with good heros and bad villains? See Rome, Open City or La Notte di San Lorenzo.
For a better, deeper critique of what is wrong with this film, I suggest reading Umberto Eco's essay on it. It is (I think), found in How to Travel with a Salmon or Travels in Hyperreality.