Lollivan
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Murphy Howard
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Sameeha Pugh
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Wuchak
RELEASED IN 1988 and directed by Mike Nichols, "Biloxi Blues" concerns a group of recruits going through Army boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, as World War II is still raging. Matthew Broderick plays the main character while Corey Parker appears as his Jew friend. Christopher Walken plays the eccentric drill sergeant.This is a fairly entertaining talky drama with light comedic touches. The boot camp seems kind of laid back compared to real life, particularly the trainees' relationship with the drill sergeant. (I was in Marine boot camp forty years later and it was totally strict with no leave on the weekends until a single weekend near the end of the three months; and, even then, it was limited to the base). As usual, Broderick makes for a likable protagonist while Walken is entertaining in an off-kilter kind of way.Park Overall plays a prostitute in an awkward (but realistic) sequence while Penelope Ann Miller appears as a potential girlfriend for our hero. It's cool seeing the latter when she was so young and fetching.THE FILM RUNS 106 minutes and was shot entirely in Arkansas. WRITER: Neil Simon from his play.GRADE: C+ (5.5/10)
daddyofduke
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.
nomorefog
It is difficult to believe that there is such a thing as the 'service comedy'. Well, there is and this film is one of them. What anybody could find remotely funny about being drafted into the army puzzles me, but it takes all kinds to make a world. The story concerns a young man from New York who is drafted and how he has to spend his time with a bunch of misfits in boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, where it is very hot and uncomfortable. He learns how to be a soldier and is meant to be 'grown up' by the end of his experiences. The film is written by legendary playwright Neil Simon but I have been lukewarm toward his other work and I found no reason to change my mind after seeing this film. I just sit here scratching my head thinking 'why' but his plays and movies are popular and have made a lot of money, so who am I to argue? Matthew Broderick plays the lead role of the young military novice but the only thing the film really has going for it is the presence of Christopher Walken as a psychotic drill sergeant, who makes Broderick's, and everyone else's life a nightmare with his somewhat strict adherence to the rules of combat in peacetime. Walken is a great actor and he makes a meal of his part, turning the sergeant into a monster who gives no quarter and doesn't receive any. At least I thought that at first, but somehow, through the process, the audience becomes sorry for him, despite or because of the fact that he is a total psychotic.. A few of the supporting players turn in good work but, this is forgettable, and something to be recommended only for people who like movies about the army. Whoever and wherever they may be, this is for them
writers_reign
Although it forms the second part of a semi-autobiographical trilogy Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues is sufficiently self-contained to stand alone as a bildungsroman. Having seen it in context on the stage - it takes up the story of Eugene Jerome (Neil Simon) a year or so after Brighton Beach Memoirs, which dealt with his teens in Brooklyn, just as the final play, Broadway Bound, covers his post-army career and attempts to establish himself as a writer - I think it's fair to say that whilst I had prior knowledge of his alter ego I could just as easily have watched Biloxi Blues cold and derived the same satisfaction. Director Mike Nichols begins the action on the train carrying Jerome and fellow ex-boot camp conscripts to Biloxi where they will be whipped into shape prior to being shipped overseas (we are in the closing months of World War Two) so that Jerome's back-story is no more viable than any of the others. Although the film boasts two 'marquee' names in Mathew Broderick (note two 'christian' names as in Neil Simon) and Christopher Walken it is actually an ensemble piece with each of the largely unknown platoon members contributing equally to what is a hugely enjoyable movie.
