BILOXI BLUES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Matthew Broderick recreates his stage role as Eugene Jerome, who goes to boot camp in Mississippi. The film's greatest virtue is the portrayal of the troubled and enigmatic platoon sergeant. It's greatest fault is that the enigma is side-stepped rather than solved. Still, this is a credible view of a World War II army boot camp. Rating: high +1.
There are lots of comedies about life in the military. There are films like MR. ROBERTS, STALAG 17, BUCK PRIVATES, STRIPES, and PRIVATE BENJAMIN. The first two may have been written by someone who actually had been in the military. Somehow the last three show very little sign that anyone in their production knew or cared what army life was about. STRIPES is a Bill Murray comedy set in the Army as opposed to be an army comedy starring Bill Murray. No problem. Bill Murray has lots of fans and one setting for his comedy is as good as another. But I can see a MR. ROBERTS or a STALAG 17 over and over. Watching STRIPES once--while reading a magazine--was plenty for me. Whoever wrote it had a really solid understanding of Bill Murray humor. The writer of MR. ROBERTS gave more of an impression of knowing the military. Someone else who had been in the military and knew it was Neil Simon. His BILOXI BLUES is not shallow, is not stereotyped, and gives the feel that much of it might have happened.
BILOXI BLUES follows the boot camp experiences of Eugene Morris Jerome (played by Matthew Broderick) and his interactions with his sergeant (played by Christopher Walken) and the other men in his platoon, especially Arnold Epstein, an intellectual, the barracks butt, and the only Jew in the platoon apart from Jerome himself. But the character who steals the show is the sergeant. His enigmatic and idiosyncratic ways of building discipline are the core of the film and overhang nearly every scene. His character is, unfortunately, much too easily dismissed by the events of the climax of the film, so we never really come to understand him. The mystery of why he chooses such odd and intriguing lessons of discipline is never adequately explained.
BILOXI BLUES is not a great military comedy, but it is probably the best thing director Mike Nichols has done in quite a long time. Neil Simon adapted--and rumor has it, greatly modified--his own autobiographical play. At least three actors repeat their stage roles. Besides Broderick, Penelope Ann Miller returns to the part of Jerome's first love and Matt Mulhern repeats as Jerome's sometime-nemesis Wykowski. But even in this modified version one has the feeling that this film is based on something real, not fabricated as a backdrop. Rate it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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