The best is astonishing, but as a whole it's barely a shadow of the book

Rating: 7/10 (5 December 2010)

Catch-22 (1970)
This should have been a brilliant movie, brilliant. It is based on one of the touchstone American novels post-WWII. It has a series of actors any other director would die for, or kill for: Anthony Perkins, Martin Balsam, Bob Newhart, Alan Arkin, Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, and even Art Garfunkel, who sings better than he acts, surely. And there is Martin Sheen and Jon Voigt, too. And heck, throw in Orson Welles (yup).
Oh, and directing? Mike Nichols. It's 1970, the middle of Vietnam, and a year after "M.A.S.H." which may have unduly influenced the tone here. Nichols had only directed two features before this--"Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe"(which won Best Picture) and "The Graduate" (which should have, and which is one of the best New Hollywood movies).
Parts of the movie are utterly hilarious--when the movie theme from "2001" breaks out (simply because the main character, the infamous Yosarian, sees a woman), it's not only funny for its excess, it's a jab at Kubrick's over-seriousness. Give Welles credit for showing up, and for doing a humorless job. In a way, he gets what Nichols wants better than anyone. The one ongoing flaw to the movie is the acting, which is too often silly. It's like they are having fun, and if Heller's book is funny, it's not because the characters are being funny. It's because what they say and do is absurd. That's completely different. Martin Balsam is one of the worst for this, making a comic role out of a surreal one.
So when the movie is simply absurd or surreal--a kind of deadpan frightening ludicrousness that might actually have been true--it's terrific. When it turns to slapstick, even slightly (fumbling, making smart cracks, or just laughing at themselves), it fumbles. When it turns to utter seriousness, as in Yosarian's night walk through the old town, seeing in succession the horrors not of war, but of life itself, it's deeply troubling and moving. And brilliant. Yes, the movie can often be brilliant.
So it's a halting experience, patched together, with too many pauses between episodes. Disappointing, but a revelation about the impossibility of infallibility. And for heaven's sake, read the book if you haven't.