A great movie, but lacks honesty & realism of U.S. military's people of colour

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2005)

I read Heller's book and saw the film when they were new. This film has only gotten better 35 years after its original release. I find nothing dated about it in the way it was shot - the filmwork is impressive. Being set in Italy - and with some outstanding Italian actors, both female and male - increases the film's historical, cultural and visual depth. "Gli italiani" know a thing or two about empire and its fall, which comes through articulately in this flick. The evident craft and care in this film point out by their presence how vapid, vulgar and ruthlessly commercial so much U.S. cinema still is. I do have to add it's a shame the movie - and apparently Joe Heller's book - hasn't a single representation of the Black American and other men and women soldiers of color: American Indians, Latinos/as, Asian & Pacific Americans. I had to re-think and lower my rating due to this fact. The absence of any depiction of the US military's disproportionately large numbers of service persons of color makes a great film noticeably less effective, less biting, and less believable. Americans of color serve their country and confront all the horrors and ironies depicted in Catch 22 - plus some extra, core layers of the same around issues of race, ethnicity and white domination in U.S. society including our military. Those aspects deserve to be conveyed. Still this remains an articulate and even harshly beautiful film. Deservedly it has become a classic - a cautionary tale of the brutality and futility of war & empire.