A valiant attempt

Rating: Null/10 (5 February 1999)

It was inevitable that a book of the magnitude of Catch 22 would pale into insignificance in movie adaptation. Tom Wolfe's magnum opus - Bonfire of the Vanities - suffered the same fate.
How could Yossarian's caustic scepticism of all around him be captured as well on celluloid? Or Cathcart and Korn's conniving? Or the well meaning chaplain's impotence when confronted with authority? And so many other things. The answer is of course: it couldn't.
Instead I tried to view this film as though I'd never read the book. After one viewing I found myself rather warming to it. It isn't as grand in scale, how could it be. But instead of slating it for being nothing like the original work, I just settled down to enjoy it as a film in its own right.
On subsequent re-readings of Heller I found myself picturing Alan Arkin as Yossarian. And I believed it too. And Art Garfunkel captured the innocent patriotism of Nately. I like this film because it didn't try too hard to be like the novel, and as opposed to Bonfire, it doesn't fail as entertaining cinema.