A good movie from the eighties - if you want to turn your mind off

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2013)

I guess this is one of the classic T&A movies from the eighties. As my friend said last night there is a fine line between T&A and rip off porn. Personally I am not a fan of porn, especially how the plot is non-existent, and the only one I ever saw, the guy who was watching it simply fast forwarded most of it and goggled at the explicit sex scenes, which I really did not appreciate.
Anyway, that has little to do with this movie. Stripes is basically about a loser who gives up on his job because he can't stand the customers and loses his girlfriend because she wants somebody who can grow. So, in a fit of despair he and his friend decide to join the army. Then it simply goes through the incompetence of his squad during basic training who end up getting into trouble in Czechoslovakia and getting out alive.
Really there is little more to this movie. It makes a bit of a joke of the army, suggesting that general infantry are simply incompetent fools that manage to survive through pure luck, and the lieutenants are idiots. The only competent soldier in the entire movie (other than the other brigades) was sergeant Hulka. And he gets stuck with the worse brigade of all.
I guess this movie is okay, if you simply want to turn your mind off and watch something that is really, in the end, meaningless. It does star John Candy so I guess that is an added bonus.