Movie Review: Stripes (1981) · 9:07pm Sep 17th, 2020
When it comes to Bill Murray, I have two major movies of his that I know of - Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. I love the second one. My thoughts on the first one will come into play later in this review.
In any case, I didn't have too much experience of the man or his body of work, so when my father rented this 1981 comedy war movie, starring him and Harold Ramis, I decided to give it a whirl and see how it would hold up.
John Winger (Murray) is a New York taxi driver who, in the course of a single day, loses his job, has his car repossessed, his girlfriend breaks up with him, and is facing eviction from his apartment. Realizing that he's a thirty-year-old loser with no prospects, he decides to join the Army, because at least that will give him food and pay. He convinces his friend and roommate Russel Zinsky (Ramis) - a teacher of English as a second language - to go with him, and they both enlist and begin basic training.
Among their platoon at camp are a variety of other misfits, ranging from the somewhat-dim-but-amiable Dewey "Ox" Oxberger (John Candy) to the bloodthirsty "Psycho" Soyer. Their commanding officer, Captain Stillman (John Larroquette) is an incompetent self-serving buffoon. The one competent Army official during basic training is Winger and Russel's drill sergeant, Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates), who of course Winger can't resist mouthing off to and repeatedly clashes with during training.
At one point during training, Hulka winds up hospitalized when Stillman - trying to impress a visiting colonel - orders a mortar crew to fire without setting proper coordinates. In his absence the platoon go to a mud wrestling bar, where Winger puts Ox up to wrestle a group of women. The club ends up raided by the police and MPs, but Russel and Winger are covered for by two female MPs (Stella and Louise, respectively played by P.J. Soles and Sean Young) that they've run into before. While Winger and Russel end up having a fun time with the two ladies, the rest of the platoon is berated by Stillman, who threatens to have them repeat basic training.
Russel and Winger return from partying with Stella and Louise to find their buddies despondent, and end up motivating them to get in shape for graduation. After an all-night cram session, they are late for the ceremony, but show up last-minute with a highly coordinated (and eccentric) performance that impresses the visiting General Barnicke; hearing that they completed training without a sergeant, he decides that they're "go-getters" and orders them assigned to guard a top-secret project in Italy.
Said project, the EM-50, is for an urban assault vehicle that is disguised to look like a normal RV. Naturally, a bored Winger can't resist messing around with it, and he persuades Russel to help him take the EM-50 on a joyride to visit their girlfriends in West Germany. Stillman, when he finds the secret project missing, orders an unauthorized mission to get it back before his superiors find it gone - and inadvertently leads the platoon into Czechoslovakia and into Soviet captivity. (A recovered Sergeant Hulka, overruled by Stillman and realizing how this is going to end, bails out and radios for help.)
The EM-50 picks up Hulka's radio transmission, and the climax of the movie unfolds in true madcap form as Winger and Russel launch an incursion on the Soviet base with their weaponized RV (and some help from Hulka as well) to save their fellow soldiers. The movie ends with the platoon returning to America, with Winger and Russel given a hero's welcome; a humorous montage of magazine covers showing the characters' futures (for example, Hulka retires and opens a burger chain; Ox becomes a teen heartthrob... and Stillman is reassigned to a weather station in Alaska).
"Stripes" is a movie that I have a fair bit of mixed feelings on. For one, it takes a good while to get started. For me, the laughs only really started once Winger and Russel get to boot camp (and you'll hear more about WHY that is soon). There are some legitimately funny moments in this movie: the gag with the mortar *is* genuinely hilarious, and the entire climax with the EM-50 rampaging through the Soviet base is pretty delightful. (Those poor border guards though. 
)
There are good performances in this movie for sure. John Candy and Harold Ramis were my favorites in terms of comedic material. Warren Oates does a great job as the gruff, only-sane-man Sergeant Hulka. He's a character who can go toe-to-toe with Bill Murray in snark, keep a squad of losers and screwups (mostly) in line, and generally provide a standard of competence to balance out the screwballs otherwise abounding in this picture.
All that being said though... I must come to my ultimate criticism of this movie and why I am hesitant to fully praise it. And that criticism is as follows:
I didn't like Bill Murray in this movie. At all, really.
And after some thought over it, versus the movie of his that I *DO* love (Groundhog Day), I think I've hit on the reason why I enjoyed the latter movie so much, whereas this movie - and also the original Ghostbusters as well - fall on their face for me.
Groundhog Day is a comedy movie, and one where Murray plays a legitimate character who grows and changes through the course of the story. We watch Phil Connors start out as a typical Murray character - a selfish jerk who sniffs at the decency of others and is just pretty unsympathetic all around - and see how the experience of living the same day over and over again (for God knows how long) affects him. Phil's character goes through a ton of changes, as he first delights in the lack of consequences for him and exploits the loop, and then he becomes despondent and feels trapped with no way out, and finally he uses the loop to improve both his life and that of others too.
Stripes, though? Bill Murray as John Winger pretty much stays the same throughout the whole film: a dedicated slacker who enjoys thumbing his nose at authority and dragging other people into his schemes. He basically just snarks his way through the course of the story and never really makes any substantial growth towards changing as a person. There is a scene in this movie where - after causing trouble yet again for the platoon - Sergeant Hulka clears the other men out, takes Winger to task for being such a screwup, telling him that he has no understanding of duty, honor, or courage. He challenges Winger to take a swing at him (removing his sergeant's hat in the process, making it "unofficial") and when Winger tries to hit him, Hulka flattens him in one punch.
It's a legitimately serious moment in the film, and in most other movies I'd say that this would mark the point of transition for Winger to actually, maybe, try and take things even a little bit more seriously as a soldier... but nope. John Winger may begin the movie as a jobless loser and end it as a war hero, but he remains completely static as a character all the way through.
(This is a major problem I have with the original Ghostbusters, too. Bill Murray as Peter Venkman in that film gives me the impression of an onlooker who cannot be bothered to engage at all with the story he's in. He just kind of strolls through events as they arise, and snarks at them. And if he as a character - or an actor - has no concern or obligation to care about the story, then I as a viewer feel no obligation in turn to care about him or the story either.)
(On a further note, I'd also like to add that two of the iconic moments in Stripes don't even happen because of Murray/Winger. The first is the famous bit when the platoon ends up singing "Doo Wah Diddy". If I recall it's Harold Ramis' character who begins singing in that moment, not Bill Murray. And secondly, while it's true that Winger gives a rallying speech to the dispirited platoon the night before graduation, it wasn't his plan for them to cram or prepare last-minute at all; that was also planned by Harold Ramis as Russel. So really, I can't give Winger credit for that bit because otherwise, again, it wasn't his idea to begin with.)
I suppose that really, how much you like this movie will all come down to how much you like Bill Murray as a leading man. If you think he's best suited to work as a side character, then Stripes is not the movie for you. I found Harold Ramis and John Candy to be the real comedic heart and soul of this film. They seemed legitimately invested in their performances and characters, and consistently provided the most laughs for me. I still get a chuckle out of Ox's moment after the mortar round takes Sergeant Hulka out of action, that's for sure. 
If I were to rank this film on a scale from one to ten, I'd probably give it a five. It starts off pretty excruciatingly slow (I barely smiled or laughed once during the opening twenty minutes, the funniest thing in the whole New York section being Harold Ramis' godawful hairdo), but manages to end on a reasonably strong or funny note with the EM-50 mayhem and the "Where Are They Now?" gag before the credits. But I just found Bill Murray to be kind of a ball and chain around the throat of this movie's story.
Sorry Bill, but in the future I'll just stick to Groundhog Day for your leading-man work.
I haven't seen Ghostbusters in ages, but I was always under the impression that part of the film's charm to many was precisely because Murray just raised his middle finger at it, and the sardonic nature of the comedy rolled with that. It was never really "about" character development. I'm speaking speculatively because I don't remember the specifics well enough.
Also, I don't think I've ever seen John Candy be bad in anything. He was one of my favourite parts of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (the other was Steve Martin: to this day, I still quote, "Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!").
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That might go a ways towards explaining the reputation of Ghostbusters to people, and why its charm has eluded me. (Well, that and just plain old hype backlash: after years of hearing about how it was "the greatest comedy ever," my reaction to it was a big fat, "That's it?" I like my comedy to build and build, with lots of gags and sequences, and just seeing Bill Murray look bored and snark at everything frankly was just a colossal disappointment. I only kind of got the appeal of the whole franchise when I played the PS3 video game, which relegated Venkman to the side and had more emphasis on Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.)
Yeah, I've not seen him in much, but I really did enjoy Candy a lot in this one. I wouldn't mind trying out Plains, Trains sometime later on. Though it'll probably have to be when I'm alone, as my father is no fan of John Hughes movies.
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Hype backlash is a very understandable reaction for me personally. It's one of the reasons I have a hard time watching older classic movies.
The problem with people clamouring to tell me how great something is... is that without a dissenting opinion or a sense of reasonableness or perspective, that sort of unqualified praise raises my hackles. I half-wonder if they're hiding something or too blinded by whatever's gotten them so excited. Sometimes, I get the impression I'm a sounding-board rather than someone with specific tastes they're trying to meet.
"The greatest comedy ever"? I don't remember having a bad time with it, but neither do I remember it being that funny. I remember Groundhog Day being a gut-buster at times, and I wouldn't even call that the greatest comedy I've ever seen because there's a hell of a contest for that title.
Not being a devotee, I haven't seen many Hughes movies either. (The only other one I remember is Home Alone, and I have no particular strong feelings for it either way). Planes was a chance find of mine, which just goes to show serendipity can be just as fun as being directed to particular movies.
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I swear, it's like you took the words right out of my mouth there. XD
In general I just dislike using the word "greatest" to refer to any specific movie. I just find it hyperbolic and frankly quite limiting, because from there it's all too easy to fall into the trap of claiming that nothing else will ever measure up. That's no way to go about watching movies, at least in my opinion. I prefer to try and take them on case-by-case. If I ever do a ranking or "top whatever" listing, I try to emphasize that it's just my own thoughts and not meant to be an objective statement of fact.
Also, good point about chance findings, or just trying something on a whim.
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I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Did you want them back?
Re hyperbole and rankings: me too. "Greatest" isn't a word I'm comfortable around, except with qualifiers like "in my opinion". I'm willing to concede something is popular, well-crafted, or historically important, but whether I find it good or not is my business, not someone else's.
I've seen snippets of this one, but I can't really say I'm eager to see the whole thing. Just saying.
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I understand. And honestly, you'd probably be best off with just the snippets in my opinion. There are legitimately funny moments and good performances in this movie... but how much you'd enjoy it as a whole definitely comes down to how you feel about Bill Murray.
One minor moment that I enjoyed in the film was seeing the two poor Russian border guards, after enduring a day of crap, get their photos in the newspaper under the heading 'Brave Heroes Repel Yankee Invasion!' Or something along those lines. They deserved something for all the misery they were put through.
The bit with the misfiring mortar round, along with Hulka's reaction to the dumb question he gets asked, amused a lot of former soldiers I know who saw it. Apparently foul-ups like that are not unknown in basic training.
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Yeah, those border guards really got put through the wringer. I really appreciated that gag with them on a magazine cover, Lord knows they deserved something for their troubles. (Especially the one guy who got coffee in his face - twice!)
I'm not at all surprised to hear that, honestly.