A valiant effort

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2011)

Joseph Heller's angry novel - pointing up the futility of war by cranking absurdity up to a comic level - becomes a large scale Hollywood movie which works hard at capturing the essence of the book but, perhaps, sinks somewhat under its own weight.
It is well worth watching nonetheless - spectacular, and featuring a vast and starry cast, yet still intelligent and relatively small scale in terms of the intimate story of Yossarian's nightmarish war experience, it is held together by a passionate and committed performance by Alan Arkin as Yossarian, a victim (as are many of the characters) turned attempted protagonist.
But I think I would recommend the book over the film.