Very funny Murray comedy that still holds up overall after 35 years; the last half-hour or so is weak

Rating: 8/10 (23 March 2017)

Three years before they threw on their proton packs and kept the New York streets safe from paranormal in Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, Bill Murray and co-writer, co-star, Harold Ramis teamed together for this spoof of life in the Army that gave Murray and Ramis one of their first starring film roles, in a film originally intended by Reitman for Cheech and Chong. The plot like many comedies of it's era and since, is very simple. Murray plays a New York cabbie down on his luck, who has had enough of dealing with annoying customers like a lady he is driving to the airport one morning, and he decides to quit his job. Afterwards his car is repossessed, and his girlfriend realizes he is headed nowhere in life and he loses her and his apartment in the process. Ramis is his best friend an unsuccessful teacher teaching English as a second language. Needing direction in life, they see an advertisement for the U.S. Army on television, Murray wants to go all in for it and enlist in order to get into shape and have some stability while Ramis is more hesitant. Eventually Murray talks him into enlisting, and after a visit with a recruiter they are sent off to basic training. Fellow recruits consist of slobs, like John Candy who has joined the Army to lose weight and get into shape, a stoner played by Judge Reinhold, a dim-witted idiot played by John Diehl, and a crazed recruit played by Conrad Dunn who is obsessed with killing people. In charge of all of them is the tough as nails Sgt. Hulka (legendary character actor Warren Oates, in one of his last film roles, he died the year after this film was released), and their commanding officer is the incompetent Captain Stillman played by John Laroquette. The first half of the film mostly deals with Murray's rebellious behavior and attitude conflicting with Oates' no-nonsense by the book way of doing things, and there are a lot of laughs between those two, as well as with Ramis and the other recruits. There are some laugh out loud moments and quotable lines in the first hour alone. The second half consists of Oates' getting injured in an explosion, leaving the platoon to train themselves, Murray and Ramis falling in love with two single, attractive MP Officers played by PJ Soles and Sean Young, and consists of the platoon going to Italy to be in charge of an urban assault vehicle and getting captured by Russians in the process. The second half has it's moments and the scene at the graduation parade is classic, but after that Stripes starts to fizzle and goes downhill. It seems that Reitman just somehow forgot after the parade sequence that he was making an irreverent comedy and then turns the movie into a routine military, action picture. Some movies can balance those elements together nicely, but Stripes fails to balance both elements together at the same time during those last 30 minutes leaving it rather boring up until the finale which is redeemed by a few big laughs. If Reitman had been able to focus on the film being a comedy the whole time, and didn't focus any attention on the last half being an action picture, the film would easily be a flawless, comedy masterpiece. As a result the movie is worth seeing for at least the first hour alone. That hour has some truly classic comedy moments that still entertain all these years later. It's just a shame the last act couldn't have been as strong. Still Stripes still holds up better in my personal opinion than Caddyshack does, and because of the strength of the first hour, and fine comedic performances by everyone in the cast, this is definitely one 80's comedy classic no to be missed. Rest assured you will laugh and get a kick out of it, maybe more in certain parts than others, but there are definitely laughs and enjoyment to be found here. Parents be advised: There is lots of nudity, swearing, drugs and irreverent humor in this film the whole way through. This is not one for the kids, even though teenagers will probably love it for the edgy, goofy humor. If you want to show this to your teen, the movie has played on television a lot over the years so find a TV edited version, or watch this with a Clearplay machine.