Suicide is Painless ... MASH is pointless ...

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2011)

(singing) "I tried but failed to care for MASH ... a film I'm fool enough to bash ... but I need to say on the net ... the only big point I could get ... Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes and I can make or leave it if I please"
I tried, I really tried to find out the secret appeal of Robert Altman's "MASH", to approach its comedic aspect in the most impartial way  and frankly, the best compliment I can make is that it's an okay film but nothing special. I'm not familiar with the TV series but I'm sure it can't be worse than the original film.
I feel guilty to write this way, maybe I should give it another chance, but the scenes are still very fresh in my memory and as memorable as they are, they didn't impact me in a very positive way. Just because it's an anti-war film doesn't wait, what was that? Unless I'm missing something, the film portrays the camp as a playground with a bunch of grown men acting like pricks. As far as the movie is concerned, war has never been so fun and so sexy to watch. Well, if it's the theme the movie choose, I'm fine and I respect the director who made the perfect "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" for that, but there's a problem: to find something fun from one character's perspective, I have to root for him and Hawkeye and his gang were far too mean-spirited to inspire me any ounce of sympathy.
I tried, I tried to laugh at their jokes, but all I could see is a film made of little redundant episodes where a bunch of moronic bullies have all the chicks and the revenge on the guys they hate, and I have a problem with that since I always root unconsciously for the unlucky outsiders. Hawkeye and Co are meant to be the outsiders where they are the true winners of the films, they humiliate and beat Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) just because he's a religious bigot, and Duvall is such an immense actor that he succeeds in deviating the effect of a manipulative script that was probably supposed to make him look even worse. Sure, they're soldiers and doctors, so it gives them an incredible sex-appeal but if the film is renowned for its political incorrectness with sex as a convenient ingredient, the way it depicted women as regular sexual trophies upset me so much, I didn't want to sympathize with the main characters, and the only female character I could root for was Major 'Hot Lips'.
And this is my biggest problem with the film, this woman was humiliated more than once, with a microphone while kissing Frank Burns, she's exposed, totally naked in front of all the soldiers (and I guess even the women were supposed to cheer for that humiliation), she tried to establish her strong and strict personality and despite everything, she remained a strong 'straight-man' among a bunch of clowns. And then all of a sudden, during the football game, she acts like a dumb chief cheerleader told to 'shut up". What the hell was that? How could her character evolve like this? Are we supposed to guess that the guys domesticated Major 'Hot Lips' reducing her to their vision of the perfect woman? And is that supposed to be funny?
"MASH" has the appeal of a mean-spirited Benny Hill show, and it portrays a group of unlikable guys with so much indulgence that I could have accepted it as the 'artistic license of a gutsy director' but I didn't expect the evolution of Major Hot Lips, which I thought looked like a sort of fantasy from a male screenwriter who spent so much time in War he ended up knowing nothing about women. Now, I see some voices shouting : absurdity, Anti-Vietnam, 'missing the point', I love these words and I wish I could have used them in my review, but I don't think the movie invites the viewer to take it seriously, it's absurd, and there's intelligence in absurdity only if it serves to demonstrates something that is not absurd. In MASH, in the best case it was absurd for the sake of absurdity and in the worst case, it was a disgraceful comedy with some scenes that weren't even funny.
I tried not to get annoyed by Hawkeye's tiresome whistling, to forgive the part where two soldiers randomly fights in the beginning, or to appreciate the sight of wounded soldiers as a solid dramatic counterpart but I don't think you can shortcut emotions this way, I didn't feel it was handled as to make you understand the whole 'war is hell' equation, so whatever greatness relied on MASH and that earned it so many Oscar nominations including one for best Picture and a Golden Palm, I failed to appreciate it. My mistake  I guess I prefer another thought-provoking Anti-war story with more comedic value and made the same year, an underrated gem named "Little Big Man"
However, the only positive thing that I concede from the film is the song "Suicide is Painless" which was one of the most promising starts from any film and one song I rank among my all-time favorite. I have nothing against "MASH" and I can see how it's a pioneer film in terms of political incorrectness, maybe I would have liked it more if it wasn't regarded as such a masterpiece but as far as the story and the characters are concerned, I don't find anything special  or that hasn't aged badly. So I'll respect the achievement of the film and give it a 7 before giving it another chance  sometime  when I'll feel more at ease.
"And you could do the same thing, if you please "