So film 2 in my series of comedy films I should’ve seen a long time ago is Stripes, a comedy about two guys down on their luck who decide the best means to solve their joint problems is to join the army. Looking at the film as a man who grew up in the ’80s, I can’t help but compare it to Police Academy. The two films are basically the same plots. Group of misfits join a military-like organization, get into trouble, prove themselves, get the respect of their superiors.
It’s definitely easy to make these comparisons, but I must also remember that Stripes came first. While I watched Police Academy countless times as a kid, that film was the redux.
So Stripes. It’s hilarious. Undoubtably hilarious, within the first few minutes, both Bill Murray and Harold Ramis had me in stitches. This is to be expected from the half of the Ghostbusters. While the plot was (to me) old, the gags, and the humour were better than I was expecting, but I don’t see why it’s such a classic. The plot is paper thin and a good platform for the humour, but it in no way shows the good storytelling that is Ghostbusters or other classic comedy films.
Definitely worth watching.
I’ve never seen it. Definitely seems like it might be interesting as a dry run for Ghostbusters.
The first half is pretty brilliant; the last half less so, but this was a staple of my teenage years.
Warren Oates is pretty good generally (y’ever see Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia?) and he was fab in this.