one of the best war movies of all time

Rating: 10/10 (1 May 2005)

You might say that "Catch-22" shows the insanity of war from an insane viewpoint. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) is an American soldier on an air base in WWII Italy who is constantly trying to get out of flying the missions. Unfortunately, he can only get out of flying the missions if he is declared crazy, and he will only get declared crazy if he turns himself in. But if he is trying to get out of flying missions, then he is obviously not crazy, so there is no way to get out.
Among the other characters are the Machiavellian Milo Minderbender (Jon Voight), the crude-mannered Col. Cathcart (Martin Balsam), the nervous Maj. Major (Bob Newhart), the robotic Sgt. Towser (Norman Fell), the dorky Danby (Richard Benjamin), the socially awkward chaplain (Anthony Perkins) and the menacing Gen. Dreedle (Orson Welles). The movie leaves nothing to the imagination, particularly in the scene where a pilot's innards get blown out (not a scene for the fainthearted). But overall, "Catch-22" shows that in war, there eventually are no good guys, especially when your orders are to bomb a town with "no strategic value whatsoever".
A few scenes are sort of just for laughs. One could say that the medal-awarding scene "strips" all facades off of war. But it's certainly a movie that anyone even considering fighting in a war should watch.