"That's the kind of humor in the face of adversity that keeps America strong."

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2019)

It's been a long time since I read 'Catch-22' the novel, but after seeing the movie last night (for the first time), I'm inclined to go back and read the book again. I thought both were superbly done, illustrating beyond a doubt the absurd by being absurd. No need to go into the circular reasoning of Catch-22 because it's been mentioned numerous times in the other reviews here. Unfortunately, the film got buried by "M*A*S*H" the year it came out, so it doesn't have the notoriety or appreciation of it's competitor, but just like it's counterpart that takes place during the Korean War, this one delights in highlighting the insanity of war and the ones conducting it. The cast is uniformly excellent throughout, with particular accolades for Alan Arkin as Captain John Yossarian, who's endless quest to get grounded from flying any more combat missions meets resistance time and again by virtue of the Catch-22 formula. Perhaps the most unusual casting decision in the film belongs to Orson Welles as Brigadier General Dreedle; I don't believe I've ever seen him without a beard before. Virtually every celebrity name in the cast looks impossibly young for members of my generation who grew up watching a lot of these fine actors. In fact, if you didn't know it going in, you would swear that the role of First Lieutenant Dobbs was being portrayed by Emilio Estevez instead of his father, Martin Sheen. For fans of bitter irony and convoluted dialog that sounds logical but leads nowhere, you can't do much better than this picture. To miss it, you'd be crazy, so if you keep on missing it...