Biloxi Blues (1988)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Matthew Broderick enters military bootcamp for WW II. Will he survive or will he die laughing? Combine Matthew Broderick with director Mike Nichols and what do you get? A fun and feelgood war comedy. Broderick and Nichols are both known for their heartwarming comedian qualities. Movies with either one of them in it will give you characters on screen that are very loveable and funny. It is not slapstick though, the acting is serious, the issues are serious, but the characters are so endearing and humanly clumsy themselves that they provide the comic relief. This style is typical for the acclaimed director Mike Nichols who has won several oscars for best picture and directing during his magnificent carreer. Where Matthew Broderick is responble for the fun part of this movie, a drill sergeant played by Christopher Walken takes care of the heavy drill stuff. Walkens role is what gives "Biloxi Blues" it's balls. This drill sergeant's character is really to be feared, the man is on the edge of losing his mind. He oozes unpredictabillity. Combine that with the cute puppyface character of witty Matthew Broderick and you have got an ideal conflict for continueously funny jokes.Now this is suppose to be a movie about training soldiers, heavy stuff normally, but not so this time. It has got the feel of a holiday camp. There are only boyscoutish funny trainingscenes in America itself to be seen, no fighting whatsoever. There is even a lovely interlude of budding romance (swooping dancescene) with penelope ann miller in her younger years. It is a 12 years and older movie, very laidback and funny, with some romance mixed into it and along the way in a casual tone some serious issues like race, sexuality and peer pressure are being raised.

This is my favorite Neil Simon production. The entire cast is perfect. It gives you a very interesting perspective into one of the seldom-told experiences of WWII... those boys who didn't quite make it to the war, but still experienced all of the concern and loss of innocence beforehand. The pace is never erratic and delivers laugh after laugh while maintaining the seriousness of a lot of the realities those kids had to deal with. There were some unexpected surprises about the culture, too. And, New England boys in delta Mississippi is a lob that sets-up the perfect spike!I can watch this over and over and it never gets old. Mike Nichols brings it all to life as only he can do!

Full Metal Jacket it definitely is not. Nor does it intend to be. Biloxi Blues, a 1988 film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken, is a meringue of light laughs. It doesn't offer profound insights into military life, but it does allow us to laugh at it.The film, the second of an autobiographical trilogy by Neil Simon, chronicles a group of young men enduring Army basic training during World War II. Their drill sergeant, Sgt. Toomey, played by Walken, engages an intersection between eccentricity and madness. Broderick plays private Eugene Jerome, a smart ass from New York. His fellow trainees include the whiny but weirdly courageous Private Epstein (Corey Parker), Private Wykowski (Matt Mulhern), Private Selridge (Markus Flanagan), Private Hennessey (Michael Dolan), and Private Carney (Casey Siemaszko), all of whom have the usual foibles. Absolutely no surprises here. Many reviewers have criticized this film because it didn't provide anything new. And it doesn't. But I enjoyed this film for what it was, an entertaining lark. The performances were credible and breezy. Not every film dealing with the military has to be emotionally searing like The Deer Hunter or Platoon. Sometimes we dine at four star restaurants and sometimes we dine at Denny's. Sometimes we watch a movie in which a marine private shoots his drill sergeant to death, and then himself, as in Full Metal Jacket, and sometimes we watch a movie that has an army private ordering his drill sergeant to do 200 push ups, which is the case in Biloxi Blues.I laugh every time I watch Biloxi Blues, particularly at the scene in which Jerome, while popping his cherry, is reminded by a good humored and patient prostitute named Rowena, played by Park Overall, to keep breathing. Keep in mind I also enjoyed watching The Hangover and The 40 Year Old Virgin. I enjoyed less Jerome meeting "the perfect girl", played competently by Penelope Ann Miller. I chuckled at Private Jerome, during an arduous march, hoping for a subway, and upon arriving at Biloxi commenting that Biloxi was Africa hot, and if it stayed that hot he may not be able to stay. But, of course, he does stay. If he didn't, he would have ended up in Leavenworth, along with Private Hennessey, who is arrested for a crime that is no longer a crime.I suspect that Neil Simon's actual experience in boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, wasn't a light hearted romp. But, then again, my military experience consists of exactly one semester of ROTC. Still, I think If Neil Simon can laugh at his training in the army so can we.

Biloxi Blues is directed by Mike Nichols and written by Neil Simon. It is based on Simon's semi-autobiographical 1985 play of the same name. It stars Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Penelope Ann Miller, Corey Parker and Matt Mulhern. Music is by Georges Delerue and Bill Butler is the cinematographer.The second part of Neil Simon's Eugene Morris Jerome trilogy, the plot centres around Eugene's (Broderick) draft into the United States Army during the last year of World War II. Sent to training camp at Biloxi, Mississippi, Eugene is thrust in amongst people from all walks of life. Here he will not only learn about life, but also have it changed for him.Straight from the off I have to say that this has become one of my favourite films of all time. From the moment I first caught it back on release, where I only went to see it because it was written by the guy who wrote The Odd Couple, I have been humoured and charmed every year since without fail. On synopsis it seems to be yet another run of the mill coming of age picture, or just another tales from the boot camp time filler, but with Simon holding the pen and Nichols painting the narrative with careful nostalgic splendour, Biloxi Blues is much better than it's often given credit for. A film that is that rare old beast that strikes the right balance between laughter and sentiment. "It was hard to believe these guys had mothers and fathers who were worried about them" Although this is primarily Eugene's story, film is propelled by the bubbling concoction of a group dynamic. At training camp Eugene and the other lads have to face up to a number of challenges, not just growing up into men, but learning about bigots, bullies, homosexuals and intellectuals, all while under the borderline crazy command of Sergeant Merwin J. Toomey (Walken). They may all be different, from different backgrounds, but one thing binds them together, none of them want to be there! In other hands this group would have consisted of annoying stereotypes, but Simon and Nichols, courtesy of the writing and the garnering of acting performances, ensure this isn't the case. The audience isn't short changed with these characterisations because they are stripped down to being survivors by way of humour and naive honour. Thus it never feels false. "I wasn't in on that Pearl Harbour thing" One of America's most celebrated film critics said Biloxi Blues contains limp dialogue! That's something which I certainly can't begin to comprehend. For the film is an advertisement for witty retorts, where often responses are used as a survivalist tool, to de-heat a flare up or to hide nervousness. In this respect Biloxi Blues pays big on revisits, each time another little one-line gem registers where previously it had been missed, maybe because we are too focused on the airy sound track first time around? Or most likely because we are too lost in a "Eugene" or "Toomey" facial moment. One of the best passages in the story concerns a last week on Earth game the lads play, the writing is sharp, yet tender, funny, yet telling, it really is a case of laugh whilst being drawn into the frightening reality that these boys are a long way from home, and possibly soon to be fighting for their lives in some muddy trench. The cast are uniformly strong. Walken delivers one of his quintessential mania turns, marking Toomey out as being one click away from either sane or insane. Broderick holds court and narrates with earnest style, while Corey Parker is a revelation as intellectual Arnold Epstein, a guy who no matter how much he is persecuted by Toomey and the other rookies, refuses to be shaken and lose his principles. Miller and Park Overall get the two female roles of note, both memorable in short appearances, with the latter deliciously dry as a hooker with a heart. In the support there's macho mirth from Mulhern (stomach of a goat) and Markus Flanagan (he calls his mother Louise), homespun mystery from an excellent Michael Dolan, and wistful tunings from Casey Siemaszko as Don Carney (can anyone count on him?). The ending doesn't quite have the dramatic impact that many would expect, and there is indeed some mellow periods of tinted nostalgia that will have some viewers urging the pace to go faster. But these are mere fly specks on a mound of horse droppings. Biloxi Blues, a wonderfully rich comedy drama, and to my mind the best thing Simon has written. 10/10