Rating: 
Summary: Kidding, Right?
Review: What a terrible movie. The army is portrayed as just another outlet for drug-induced cretins looking for a way to get from one day to another. It is a nasty, very nasty attempt at updating Catch 22 and it just doesn't work. If the armed services bore any relation to the way they are portrayed in this movie we would not just have lost any action in which we were involved, the entire service would be jailed. Drug dealing, gun running, arbitrary killings, what is the point of this movie. It must be kidding, right?
Rating: 
Summary: A movie about source and product (I prefer the source)
Review: When it comes to books-turned-into-movies, there's an eternal question: Is it better to see the movie before you read the book? Or should you read the book before you see the movie? I've always felt that reading a book can spoil a movie for a viewer, yet movies almost never ruin a good book for a reader because, well, there's just more there. And the fact is, the book is almost always better than the movie. With the exception of, maybe, "The Godfather." And, so I'm told, "The Bridges of Madison County." And "Carrie." And most of the James Bond movies. And . . . Anyway, all this came to mind because I watched "Buffalo Soldiers," a movie based on Robert O'Connor's novel. Joaquin Phoenix plays Ray Elwood, an Army specialist who's running drugs and black-market goods through his base in West Germany in the late '80s, about the time the Berlin Wall comes down. With the Cold War over, the soldiers grow bored, get slack and start giving in to bad
ideas, such as tackle-football indoors and heroin. Meanwhile, like a crooked Ferris Bueller, Elwood scams his commanding officer (Ed Harris), fences anything not nailed down, collides with a no-nonsense sergeant (Scott Glenn) and ill-advisedly falls in love with the sergeant's daughter (Anna Paquin). The movie flirts with interesting ideas about peace and war and soldiers and criminals; it's well-made and nicely juggles drama and dark humor; and literally all the casting is perfect. But as a fan of the book, too many times during the movie I found myself buying hard-to-buy scenes (for example, the massive opium refinery Elwood assembles right on the base) because of what I knew from the novel, not from what the movie was telling me. Which made me wonder: Would I have liked the movie more if I didn't know the book? By the time I got to the film's forced "happy" ending (which plays out much differently than O'Connor imagined it), I realized that if the movie were better, the book wouldn't matter.
Rating: 
Summary: The real Army
Review: Wow, this movie reminds me so much of my Army unit in Germany, I could tell you who the real life equivalenty of all the characters in the movie are. This movie is about Army Specilist Roy Elwood, who is always involoved in a scam of one sort or another. When he steals two trucks full of weapons, he gets in way over his head. This is a movie that is as dark a comedy as "M*A*S*H" and "Catch 22", except a little darker. It is an extreame example, but it isn't wrong. The near clueless base CO (Ed Harris, who plays against type); the NCO who realishes in abusing his authority (Scott Glenn, who is absolutly convincing in his role of a sadist); the daughter who dosn't mind being used to get back at her father (Anna Paquin, who's alright). This may not be everyones cup of tea, especially after September 11th; but like I said, it isn't wrong. Take it from someone who was there and saw it all.
Rating: 
Summary: zany military comedy
Review: Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachim Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army, pulls off an outrageous scam to enrich himself and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played by Anna Pacquin. Unfortunately, possibly because neither Ed Harris nor Scott Glenn can consistently sustain the comedic levels of Phil Silvers or the drill sargeant in Pyle, this film at times cannot decide if its comedy or drama. Still, for the most part, the film is hilarious and well worth the rental price.
Rating:
Summary: zany military comedy
Review: Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachim Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army,who pulls off an outrageous scam to enrich himself and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played by Anna Pacquin. Unfortunately, possibly because neither Ed Harris nor Scott Glenn can consistently sustain the comedic levels of Phil Silvers or the drill sargeant in Pyle, this film at times cannot decide if its comedy or drama. Still, for the most part, the film is hilarious and well worth the rental price.
Rating:
Summary: zany military comedy
Review: Zany military comedy in the spirit of Sgt. Bilko or Gomer Pyle in which Joachin Phoenix plays an enlisted man, sprung from jail to join the Army,who considers himself an entrepreneur and pulls off an outrageous drug-making scam to enrich himself (he drives a Mercedes) and also, worse still, romances the Sargeant's daughter, played with verve by Anna Paquin. Sargeants Ed Harris and Scott Glenn basically live up to their predecessors' comedic heights, though the film never quite reaches the level of slapstick humour, unless you consider a gas station explosion or a laboratory explosion to be slapstick humour. Some wag might consider Anna Paquin's face to be somewhat cartoonish. Still, for the most part, the film is filled with plenty of gags and well worth the rental price. The first "gag" involves an enlisted man who dies after hitting his head on the corner of a table during a game of indoor football, and it is up to the Sargeant to describe to his relatives how he died while serving his country.
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