Predictable but watchable (and occasionally very funny) comedy about smart asses joining the army.

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2006)

Bill Murray made his name with this early '80s comedy from director Ivan Reitman (the pair of them would later enjoy an even bigger box office hit with Ghostbusters). Stripes also "inspired" later films like Police Academy, Spies Like Us and Combat Academy, with its simplistic plot structure showing inept recruits going through training, irritating the hell out of their superiors, and finally coming good in the end. In itself, Stripes is harmless fun for the most part, with obvious jokes and pratfalls and occasional flashes of foul language and nudity. Of its type it is a passable enough time-filler (there are, without doubt, FAR poorer examples of movies of this kind).
Lazy layabout John (Bill Murray) realises his life is going nowhere and time is running out for him to make something of himself. Joined by his pal Russell (Harold Ramis), he decides to sign up for the army. Initially John and Russell expect this to be a ball, believing that they're in for the kind of action-packed, globe-trotting escapades shown on the army-recruitment TV commercials. Soon they realise they're in for a much tougher time than that as they begin the gruelling training under the leadership of the sadistic Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates). After various misadventures and crazy pranks, the wannabe-soldiers under Hulka eventually get their act together and earn their qualified stripes.... whereupon they are promptly sent off to Europe to safeguard a top-secret new armoured vehicle. John and Russell take the vehicle for a spin, little realising that the rest of the U.S. Army think they've stolen it to hand it over to the Communists. The rest of their platoon are ordered to find them, kill them, and return the vehicle to its rightful place, but they are captured by the Communist forces and locked up in a Czechoslovakian prison camp. John and Russell do the only decent thing, and use their army training to bust their pals out of jail.
The film not only brought Murray's comic talent to the fore. A quick glance down the cast list shows other future comedy superstars like John Larroquette, Judge Reinhold and John Candy also given this early opportunity to show their skills. Oates also scores as the absurdly larger-than-life NCO, giving a performance of comic flair that is a million miles from the sweaty, dirty anti-heroes he used to play in old Sam Peckinpah movies. The storyline is totally predictable and implausible, and little effort is made to adopt any form of subtlety or wit, but for what it is Stripes works well in its broad and simple-minded way.