MASH has taken a lot of undeserved heat

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2002)

MASH goes down as one of the greatest war movies of all time. Most people have complained that it is too disjointed in its presentation, but how many people have read the preceding novel? The novel is ten to twelve story lines that are almost like vignettes. The whole point was not to follow a set story, simply because, what war follows a set story?
The movie set out to humor you and gross you out at the same time, and it most definitely succeeded in my case. I found the antics to be hysterical, and the surgery scenes to harrowingly realistic. These doctors needed a form of entertainment to keep themselves out of the rubber trucks and straitjackets, and to most rationale people, this is understandable.
Robert Altman has taken a lot of crap for being a "Pacifist". However, those who label him as that by virtue of this movie are entirely missing the point. It has nothing to do with hating war, it has everything to do with the question of "Why are we here fighting this war that has nothing to do with us or our country?" That was the question that was being presented to us during the Vietnam War in the context of Korea, which was less than 20 years before this film was released. People must see it in context to judge it for what it is.
9 out of 10