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From:Alan Arkin , Martin Balsam , Richard Benjamin , Art Garfunkel , Jack Gilford , Paramount , Mike Nichols ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#4347 |
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3 of 11 customers found the following review helpful:
 A terrible adaptation of a classic that deserves better., 2005-10-06
I was tempted to give this movie one star just to offset the "stellar" reviews already given. But that's not fair because this is really a 2-star movie. I loved the book. I also realize that there is no possible way to convey the sum contents of such a convoluted absurdist story as is presented in the book. But PLEASE!
First, Alan Arkin's performance is pathetic. I'm not sure if he was directed to act like a 15 year old in a school play or if he's just a crappy actor (haven't seen him in any other major roles). Oh well, bad acting and bad direction can be forgiven if the story is solid. It is not. I was abysmally aghast at what they've done to the plot, the characters, the atmosphere.
Any chances for deep characterization for any character besides Yossarian have been destroyed. The story has been utterly drained of humor, many of the pivotal points of the plot have been summarily butchered. When random non-Yossarian character acts irrationally, the movie makes them seem simply to be abject morons instead of possibly-once-thinking human beings trapped in the systemically propogated self-destructive thought-processes of the military bohemeth during a "popular" war.
Cameos by Orsen Wells and Martin Sheen add a glimmer of hope that vanishes as soon as it is appearant that Nochols was only using their star-presence to fill an otherwise undressed screen.
This movie premiered the same year as M*A*S*H*, and yet it seems, in every respect, trying to >BE< M*A*S*H*. Why? The sinister and absurd humor of the book has been bled dry and filled with lack-luster stabs at irony (as if the audience is not smart enough to handle that part on their own).
I understand the difficulty in trying to translate a book like Catch-22 to the screen. I also understand that the "times" will color the production in a way that may not have been anticipated at the time of the books publication or appreciated by the reader/viewer many years later. But I would rather this movie had never been made than to see the story so thoroughly trashed.
6 of 6 customers found the following review helpful:
 Everybody's crazy, 2005-09-07
Here is a pitchblack satirical comedy about the insanity of war that goes beyond the limits of satire into the realm of disgust. The movie focuses on an air force unit in Italy during WW II and a handful of characters who have become crazy. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out but can't get discharged (that's the Catch-22); Milo (Jon Voight) has turned the war into a means of getting rich; Col. Cathcart (Martin Balsam) is just looking for glory in the Saturday Evening Post; etc., etc. It's a one joke idea: war is insane, and it's looked at from a number of different angles. Most of these angles are hilarious, but after a while it's as if everyone starts saying this isn't enough, like a wild man holding us by the shirtfront demanding that we see, we understand, and thinking that we don't, we couldn't possibly, just piles on the excess. It goes on too long and begins to batter us so much until what was funny and crazy is now just sickening. Like Heller's book, Mike Nichols, the director, doesn't know when to back off.
1 of 13 customers found the following review helpful:
 5 WORDS-CHARLES GRODIN AS "AARFY" AARDVARK!!!!!!!, 2005-08-10
AM READING BOOK...BOOK GOOD
MUST WATCH MOVIE "AARFY" AARDVARK FAVORITE CHARACTER
WHEN YOSSARIAN PUNCHES HIM, HIS BELLY ABSORBS BLOWS
HILARIOUS!!!!
6 of 8 customers found the following review helpful:
 A Decent Adaptation, 2005-05-06
Joseph Heller's novel, like George Orwell's '1984' is a hard one to put on film as the narrative is so rich in satire ridiculing human nature and how it manifests itself in social conventions and institutions. Mike Nichols makes a decent effort in this adaptation in trying to present Heller's various themes on human nature's tendency to obey social paradigms and institutions no matter how absurd or exploitative they may be.
Yossarian (Alan Arkin) is the voice of sanity drowning under an absurd reality. Economic prosperity and efficiency outweighs any concerns for collective security: a herd mentality as a modus operandi is sufficient to assure that the group will prosper at the expense of the individual. My favorite part is when Yossarian asks his C.O. why his parachute is missing, the C.O. tells him that all parachutes have now been discarded to ensure future profit and that it's simply better that way: one can see an interesting parallel with our present politics concerning policies of collective well-being such as retirement, health, education, etc., that always seem to be sidelined in favor of more profitable enterprises favoring the elite at the expense of the majority.
The film is certainly not a complete or faithful adaptation of the book but few films are. The film does capture the satirical elements of the book rather well even if it dilutes itself somewhat in overextending its focus on its all-star cast starring Orson Welles, Jon Voight, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Richard Benjamin, and Martin Sheen, among others.
12 of 13 customers found the following review helpful:
A Man Fed Dog Food Every Day in his Life Can One Day...., 2005-01-18
...be given filet mignon and feel it is a insult to his palet.
Another Batman movie is being made. Watch how many folks complain how wrong the filmakers got it and how it is crap because it doesn't fit their idea of the Batman mystique acquired from their readings, nay, studying of the comic books.
What does this have to do with the movie Catch 22?
There are too many critics here who didn't like this Mike Nichols rendition of Joseph Heller's war novel Catch 22. I say Frog Them and see for yourself what's up with this rendering (another view) of the war story. I however read the book and saw the movie and thought the movie to be just fine. No, better than fine. The movie captures the story and the mood of the novel superbly.
Yossarian (played by Alan Arkin) famously discovers that part of the enemies in war are not only the ones you bomb and shoot, but the ones who are said to be *on your side*... but have either 1) a jackbooted mentality towards military protocol or 2) so corrupted by taking advantage of the loopholes in the protocol that they are criminal....Yossarian tries to get a psychological deferment to not fly the bombers any more and try to get home...he wants the powers that be think he's nuts so he would not be further exposed to the inanity and insanity of war, but of course gets confronted with the 'damn if you do fly and damn if you don't fly' orders from the military protocolists...if Yossarian knows its flying in another mission which makes him nuts, he can't possibly be nuts, so he must fly in another mission...
Striking in the book as well as the movie are the scenes where: Yossarian discovers his gunner has been riddled with artillary fire, a soldier gets destroyed by the propellers of a low flying aircraft and all the soldiers various madnesses with the ladies of the red light district...as well as how the military supplier becomes as fascistic as the enemy.
It is a good movie that I feel didn't get it's due because it went against the grain of most war stories being told. It poked a little fun at the ridiculousness of war and of men in war...it has a 60's draft card burning, hippie protest feel about it. We expect the boys to be proudly willing to do their fighting for our country. But we really don't know how crazy going to war is unless we've gone fighting for our country. You should find this one and look at it...
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