Biloxi Blues
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, PG13, 106 m, 1988
Directed by Mike Nichols. Stars Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Matt Mulhern, et al. 

A minor Army barracks comedy that still might be worth considering for Christopher Walken’s imaginative performance as a weirdo drill sergeant with a metal plate in his head. The penultimate chapter in Neil Simon’s autobiographical trilogy (which is bookended by Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound), Biloxi Blues details the playwright’s experiences in boot camp during the second war to end all wars. This film version, adapted by Simon and directed impassively by Mike Nichols, doesn’t effectively open up the play for the big screen; it feels stage bound. (It’s like watching a lesser episode of “Playhouse 90.”) Matthew Broderick plays Simon’s alter ego, Eugene, a fairly unimpressive guide through this coming-of-age story. His observations on military life and the fairer sex (often relayed to the audience by voice-over narration) are alarmingly mediocre. Biloxi Blues is too restrained, too noncommittal to suitably function as a comedy. It sticks to the middle of the road, instigating polite chuckles instead of raucous laughter. Not since the Marx Brothers sold their souls to Irving Thalberg (more about that here) has Jewish humor seemed so toothless.

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.