Review of Stripes (1981) by Chris G — 16 Feb 2009

Have you ever known somebody that joined the Army for a stupid reason. Stripes is filled with those kind of guys. Bill Murray and HaroldRamis star as two guys that really have nothing going for their lives and wind up signing on the dotted line and joining the service. What the originally see as a cakewalk with travel and officersprivileges turns into a nightmare, mainly at the behest of Sgt. Hulka (Warren Oates). After one mishap after another and Hulka ends up laid up for the remainder of basic training, the platoon ends up landing a sweet assignemnt "guarding a trick". But for these guys even guarding a truck can become an international incident.

Stripes is one of those comedies from the early 1980's that's actually funny. The premise is your typical dumb fish out of water story (you can almost say that it's stolen from the Three Stooges), but Stripes is a film all its own with a witty cast and a great sense of humor. It takes it characters seriously even though they don't even take themselves seriously.