Director: Robert Altman
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt
I've never watched much of the MASH TV show, but I like what I have seen. This movie was very different and very hit or miss, though probably more on the hit side.
I have only seen one Robert Altman movie (Nashville) and I liked it. This movie was a "comedy", but wasn't consistently funny. The anti-war message was not a strong as I was expecting, though there was a lot of gore for a comedy. The scenes where they were performing surgery were brutal, yet often contained very funny moments.
This movie was episodic. It was made up of 5 or so arcs of story that were self contained. This made for an uneven watch. Some were hilarious throughout, while others really fell flat (especially the random football movie thrown in at the end).
The thing that made me like this movie was the performances of Gould and Sutherland. These guys pulled of their roles perfectly.
Overall, an ok comedy that I wouldn't call a classic.
Lesson learned: Suicide is painless.
Catch-22 is a better interpretation of Joseph Heller's book than Mash. I enjoyed Mash but Catch-22 seems to better capture the sureal atmosphere and constant hypocracy that prevails throughout Heller's book.
ReplyDelete