JinRoz
For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Siflutter
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
timsmith37
Very surprising that this has such a low IMDb rating. I suspect that has less to do with the quality of the film than with viewers prejudices and preconceptions.Based on Peter Nichols real life experiences it is It Ain't Half Hot Mum meets Virgin Soldiers, only much more nuanced than the one and more subversive than the other. Imagine an episode of IAHHM where Windsor Davies and Michael Knowles are running guns, Donald Hewlett has got religion, Melvyn Hayes is talented, Don Estelle has coupled up with Ken MacDonald, John Clegg is aggressively heterosexual, Stuart McGugan is a serial shagger, and Dino Shafeek is female and seduces Christopher Mitchell.The casting of Cleese as the uptight officer is problematic, and perhaps puts the tone off kilter, but he plays the role straight (other than the surreal and cathartic scene at the end where he joins the performers to launch into his silly walks).Patrick Pearson is effective as the young recruit, and Joe Melia, David Bamber, Bruce Payne and Simon Jones all hold their own (difficult to avoid double entendres with this review). Michael Elphick is also excellent as the tough sergeant while Nicola Pagett's Indian accent lapsing deliberately into Welsh resolves some of the criticism that might otherwise be levelled for playing blackface. The film though belongs to Dennis Quilley, the queen of the jungle.
JohnHowardReid
One the one hand, this is a peculiar blend of farce, satire, anti- establishment jokes, musical high-jinks, exaggerated character studies and ridiculously camp impersonations, with – on the other hand – romance, tragedy, realism, death and mutilation. Nevertheless, the sexual innuendo rippling through every second phrase to the point of monotony certainly gives a pointer to the overall movie's intended audiences. It would certainly take a genius to form a cohesive film from such disparate elements, but director Michael Blakemore certainly gives it a good college try. His devices include on-location filming, incorporating old newsreel footage, fading in from black-and-white to color and vice versa, and using dissolves, split screen and other mechanical devices. But it doesn't work – basically because the players won't let it work! Just about everyone in the cast has a Victor McLaglen complex and tries to out- act, out-play and out camera-hog everyone else! Worst offender is prolific TV actor Denis Quilley who made only nine or ten films, but John Cleese gives him a good run for his money. Oddly, both Quilley and Cleese are effective at times, showing how the film could have been improved if they had toned their acting down a bit.Another problem is that the musical pastiches are supposed be second-rate, and this is how they are actually played – with enthusiasm, but also with a degree of amateurishness which is sometimes endearing (e.g. the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers pastiche; the Flanagan and Allan skit), sometimes just amateurish (particularly the skits performed by Denis Quilley). The Carmen Miranda and Marlene Dietrich take-offs are particularly inept.Technical credits are highly competent but the film is less effective than the sum of its parts. The finale in which everything is left up in the air is particularly unsatisfactory. Maybe this would work okay on the stage where the disparate elements could be separated by the rise and fall of the curtain. Unfortunately, neither the screenwriter nor the director have been able to come up with a similar solution to the movie.
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews
Really, the film is as confused as some would argue the cross-dressing military units are. I'm not a fan of John Cleese. That's hardly a secret. I tolerate him on Monty Python, and I will grant that he can entertain, but as a general rule, I don't exactly make it a point to seek out his work(though I do not make as strong efforts as I could to avoid it, either... I reserve that for those that I genuinely cannot stand). This film was purchased for me by someone mistaking it for something having to do with his comedy troupe(with good cause, as its crude pun title was translated to "Python at the Front Lines"). A rather see-through attempt at passing it off as something it's not, really, as he's not joined by even a single other member of the group. One of the main problems is that this cannot seem to make up its mind on what to be; a comedy or a war-drama. Neither of them are achieved particularly effectively, separate from each other, and whenever the two are attempted at the same time, it's even worse. There are times when the war aspect seems tacked on, as if the writers were busy writing the attempts at comedy, and suddenly remember that it's set during war-time. The drama begot little emotional response from me(albeit I will admit that it did manage some, near the very end). The comedy... I don't know, it seemed to mainly consist of the flamboyantly gay character being, well, flamboyantly gay, and shining a spotlight on the fact that the men, soldiers, no less... wait for it... are wearing *dresses*. Yup. That's about it. I guess the musical numbers weren't bad. Cleese does nothing to amuse, playing it more straight than many of us were aware he was capable of. He plays someone who, at least appears to be(it's not really clear) deeply religious, and I couldn't tell if this trait was supposed to be part of the comedy or the drama aspect of the film. I don't know, if you're into musicals and/or men in drag, you may like it. I recommend this to people in either or both of the aforementioned groups(I won't stoop to the level of suggesting that those who enjoy one are highly likely to also enjoy the other), but I'm not sure who else to steer towards this. Don't watch this thinking that Cleese does what you're used to(those goofy-looking poses that you see on the cover of the home release... they're from *one* bit in the film, during the credits, which is really the only time he's Python-y). 5/10
zpzjones
I enjoyed this comedy of wits and one liners. The play was recently resurrected here in the U.S. but I didn't get a chance to see it. So I ran across this movie/video not because of John Cleese of Monty Python fame but Nicola Pagett who I had seen in PBS's Upstairs Downstairs. Cleese and the other cast members win me over in this spoof of the British occupying of Malaysia in 1948. Cleese & company are a scratch lot of misfits, some veterans from WW2 others are newbies and as for Nicola Pagett she's not in the military at all even though she wears a uniform. She's called 'Acting Lieutenant' Sylvia Morgan. Very funny since being former military myself I've never heard any rank in any army designated 'Acting Lieutenant'. They are a British example of the American USO called here SADUSEE. The leader and organiser of the troupe is Denis Quiley who operates under Cleese's authority. Quiley & co. perform drag queen skits for the Brit soldiers as well as for friendly Malaysian troups. These skits are hilarious. To see Quiley(who recently passed)dressed as a Carmen Miranda type will make you rewind the tape over & over again just to believe what you had seen. Quiley is marvelous as the outrageous sissified Terry. (The end of the film is ironic but I won't give it away). Some fine Brit character actors, such as a young Bruce Payne, Michael Elphick(great as the double agent Sergeant) & John Quayle (from some Masterpiece Theatre programmings) in a brief appearance as an officer with a truck full of shot up men.Cleese is given some great lines here as is Quiley and their performances stand out. Much of this film is sort of reminiscient of any episode of M.A.S.H. if you will. Just think of Klinger in one of his drag skits. Or even a Bob Hope series of skits gone awry. This flick sticks in your mind longer and longer after each viewing. So open your mind, dim the lights, set the popcorn(that's what I did) and let Cleese, Quiley and their band of cutups crack you up.(** this film has a lot of profanity even though it's supposed to be an old fashioned military comedy that takes place in the 40s. The dialogue is quite spicy. And also Pagett has one bare breasted sex scene while seducing a young new intelligence recruit.)
