FromCatch-22toGood Morning, Vietnam, there are plenty of great movies that balance compelling character drama with incisive dark humor as effectively asMASH. Most war movies, likeSaving Private Ryan,Apocalypse Now, andThe Deer Hunter, offer bleak, harrowing accounts of the horrors of warfare and the devastating psychological toll it takes. But there are plenty of filmmakers who have used the inherent absurdity of warfare to satirize geopolitics and human nature, likeStanley Kubrick with his Cold War-era farceDr. Strangeloveor Ivan Reitman with his lighthearted buddy comedyStripes.
Robert Altman’s transgressive comedy blockbusterMASHand the ensuing hit TV adaptation both showed audiences how to laugh at the pain of war.Altman’s film used its Korean War setting as a timely parallel to the then-ongoing Vietnam War, and the TV show used a workplace sitcom set in a war zone to depict triumphs of the human spirit — even under such trying circumstances, people can make friends and build a community. FromThree KingstoStalag 17, there are a ton of great movies that have done the same.
Between his hit moviesHeartburnandWorking Girl, Mike Nichols helmed the underappreciated military comedyBiloxi Blues.Biloxi Bluesstars Matthew Broderickas a rebellious teenager who’s drafted into the U.S. Army and Christopher Walken as the hard-edged veteran sergeant charged with training him and all the other new recruits.
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MAS*H was a popular war sitcom in the ’70s, but could the humor translate to modern day?
It was based on the semi-autobiographical play of the same name by Neil Simon, and Simon’s self-penned screenplay adaptation exemplifies his signature razor-sharp wit. At the beginning of the movie,Broderick’s Private Jerome sets out to not only survive the war, but also lose his virginity.
The tongue-in-cheek humor ofBiloxi Bluesbrings the coming-of-age trope of sexual maturity into a deadly World War II setting.Simon’s typically amusing script, Nichols’ typically lean, focused direction, and Broderick’s typically charismatic performance all come together to makeBiloxi Bluesa gem.
Brian G. Hutton’sKelly’s Heroestransplants a bawdy heist comedy into the battlefields of World War II.It follows a ragtag band of American G.I.s who go A.W.O.L. so they can go behind enemy lines and rob a stash of Nazi gold from a French bank.Kelly’s Heroessatirizes war by focusing on the soldiers’ pursuit of personal wealth over the underlying politics of the conflict itself.
It’s a war movie in which the heroes have no interest in the war they’re fighting. Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas ably lead the ensemble,with hilarious supporting turns from Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, and Harry Dean Stanton.
LikeMASH,Kelly’s Heroesis less interested in the wartime setting and more in its cast of colorful characters.
Troy Kennedy Martin provides a screenplay that’s just as audacious, inventive, and wildly entertaining as his script forThe Italian Job. LikeMASH,Kelly’s Heroesis less interested in the wartime setting and more in its cast of colorful characters.
9Three Kings (1999)
The Film Was Directed By David O. Russell
After making his mark with the acclaimed low-budget comediesSpanking the MonkeyandFlirting with Disaster, David O. Russell helmed his first big-budget studio movie withthe Gulf War heist caperThree Kings.Set at the end of the First Gulf War,Three Kingsstars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze as four American soldiers in Iraq.They set out to steal a hidden cache of gold during the 1991 uprisings against Saddam Hussein.
Much likeMASH,Three Kingssends its absurdist fiction crashing into the real-life history of a controversial war.It sets an explosive blend of action and humor against a backdrop of political rage. Although the story is ridiculous, the approach is realistic; Russell used Steadicam shots and handheld cameras to give the movie a documentary-like sense of immersion.
After the back-to-back blockbuster success ofJawsandClose Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg had the freedom to make whatever movie he wanted to — and what he wanted to make was a farcicalIt’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-style ensemble comedy set during World War II.1941tells the story of the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 as an absurdist caper.After the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic spreads across the Los Angeles area (with comical results).
Although it was a critical and commercial flop in its time (especially compared to Spielberg’s previous films),1941has since been reevaluated as a cult classic. Its ensemble cast includes some of the funniest performers in Hollywood, like Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Michael McKean, Penny Marshall, and Slim Pickens, to name a few.It’s impressive just to see the lengths that Spielberg went to in order to pull off elaborate, expensive sight gags.
Stripes
Cast
Stripes centers on John Winger, a 30-something who enlists in the U.S. Army after a streak of personal failures. Released in 1981, this film follows Winger’s comedic journey through basic training, as he navigates military life with a group of misfit recruits.
Before they donned their proton packs to bust ghosts, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis worked with director Ivan Reitman on a very different comedy: 1981’sStripes.Murray and Ramis play two immature slackers who decide to enlist in the U.S. Army to bring some much-needed discipline and purpose to their floundering, aimless lives.
Once they join the military, they get into all kinds of hilarious hijinks.Murray is at the height of his powers,and his on-screen chemistry with Ramis believably captures a ride-or-die friendship.
It’s a lot likeMASH; it takes place in a dangerous environment, but it has the heart of a found-family storyline.
WhileStripesdoesn’t have a lot to say about the military-industrial complex or the absurdity of war,it is a delightfully irreverent comedy with lovable characters and an abundance of great gags. In that sense, it’s a lot likeMASH; it takes place in a dangerous environment, but it has the heart of a found-family storyline.
The Boys in Company C (1978)
The Boys in Company C: This 1978 war drama follows a group of young American Marines as they navigate the challenges of combat during the Vietnam War. Facing corruption and incompetence, they contemplate a plan to escape frontline duty by participating in an unusual scheme involving a soccer match.
The first chapter in Sidney J. Furie’s unofficial Vietnam War trilogy,1978’sThe Boys in Company C, is still the most renowned.Set in 1967,The Boys in Company Cfollows five young men as they go through basic training at boot camp before being shipped off to fight in Vietnam. Once they actually get to the battlefield, it dawns on them that no amount of training could’ve prepared them for the horrors they find there.
Much likeMASH,The Boys in Company Cencapsulates the camaraderie that bonds soldiers together in battle.The five main characters all become good friends at boot camp,but the traumatic events of the war bring them together as brothers-in-arms. Just under a decade beforehis iconic turn inFull Metal Jacket, R. Lee Ermeygave his first on-screen drill instructor performance inThe Boys in Company C.
Billy Wilder followed up his film noir classicsSunset BoulevardandAce in the Holewith one of the greatest P.O.W. movies ever made: 1953’sStalag 17.Based on Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski’s autobiographical Broadway play of the same name,Stalag 17revolves around a group of American airmen in World War II, who are locked away alongside 40,000 other prisoners in a German prisoner-of-war camp somewhere on the Danube. The movie focuses on one specific barracks, where the men begin to suspect that one of their fellow prisoners is an informant.
Wilder deftly translates the play’s balance of humor and tragedy— the same balance handled beautifully inMASH— to the medium of film.Wilder’s steady-handed direction and the cast’s fine performances make this a true masterpiece.Stalag 17is such a pitch-perfect portrayal of life in a P.O.W. camp that it ended up inspiring the creation ofHogan’s Heroes.
Before he madeBiloxi Blues, Nichols had previously satirized war in his 1970 film adaptation of the defining anti-war satire:Joseph Heller’s seminal debut novelCatch-22.Catch-22lampoons the ridiculousness of drafting unwilling citizens to fight in a war zone with the story of a group of soldiers trying to maintain their sanity while carrying out their military chores. Nichols reteamed withThe Graduatescreenwriter Buck Henry to condense Heller’s devilishly complex novel into a two-hour movie.
Nichols not only captures the chaos of the source material, but its biting deconstruction of the absurdity of war.Alan Arkin gives one of his finest performances in the lead role of Captain John Yossarian,with strong support from the likes of Bob Balaban, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, and even Orson Welles. Like the book it’s based on,Catch-22is as smart as it is funny.
Good Morning, Vietnam
Good Morning, Vietnam, directed by Barry Levinson, stars Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer, a radio DJ assigned to the Armed Forces Radio Service in Vietnam. His comedic broadcasts quickly gain popularity among the troops, but his unconventional humor faces pushback from military superiors.
Loosely based on the experiences of real-life Armed Forces Radio Service DJ Adrian Cronauer, Barry Levinson’sGood Morning, Vietnamis a refreshingly warm-hearted counterpoint toharrowing Vietnam War movieslikeApocalypse NowandThe Deer Hunter.Set in Saigon in 1965, it stars Robin Williams as Cronauer, who keeps his fellow troops’ spirits up with a hilarious radio show.Although he proves to be massively popular among the soldiers, his superiors are increasingly frustrated by his “irreverent tendency.”
Williams received his first of four Oscar nominations for his turn inGood Morning, Vietnam, which is equal parts hysterical and heartfelt.Levinson masterfully balances the comic levity of Cronauer’s radio show with the unspeakable horrors taking place just outside the walls of the base. Much likeMASH,Good Morning, Vietnamis all about the human spirit triumphing in the face of war.
Stanley Kubrick effectively captured the bleak horrors of warfare inPaths of GloryandFull Metal Jacket, but he took a much more comedic approach to the subject matter in his brilliant 1964 satireDr. Strangelove.Produced at the height of the Cold War,Dr. Strangelovesees the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. The U.S. president and his cronies desperately attempt to prevent a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union that was ordered by a mentally unstable Air Force general.
Although the film’s source material —Red Alertby Peter George — is a straightforward dramatization of a potential nuclear war, Kubrick recognized the inherent absurdity of mutually assured destruction and adapted it as a nihilistic comedy.Dr. Strangelovearrived as cinema’s sharpest political satiresinceThe Great Dictator(and remained the sharpest untilMASHcame along). It was made to poke fun at Cold War-era paranoia, but its satire of the nuclear arms race is, sadly, just as relevant today.
