Biloxi Blues (1988) * * 1/2

 

Directed by: Mike Nichols

Starring:  Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Matt Mulhern, Corey Parker, Casey Siemaszko, Michael Dolan, Penelope Ann Miller

I watched Biloxi Blues for the first time in many years on the day my nephew was to report to his U.S. Army post.   Biloxi Blues is light enough fare to make the World War II army seem palatable.   Neil Simon's play transmuted into a movie isn't designed to see the big picture.  It uses the World War II U.S. Army as a backdrop for his customary supply of one-liners and jokes.  There is no room for stark realism in Neil Simon's world and sometimes that's just fine.  Even when the movie grows serious, you're waiting for the next joke right around the corner.   

The character representing Simon in Biloxi Blues is Eugene Jerome (Broderick), the Brooklyn kid from Brighton Beach Memoirs who is now on a train destined for basic training in "Africa hot" Biloxi, Mississippi at the tail end of World War II.   Eugene isn't liking his army experience already.   The train is packed with sweaty soldiers who haven't showered in days.   When the train arrives at the base, Eugene and the company are treated to their drill sergeant, the off-kilter Sgt. Toomey (Walken) who disarms his platoon with cordial greetings.   As played by Walken, Toomey isn't your standard screaming drill instructor, but a mild-mannered lunatic with a steel plate in his head and his own methods of instilling discipline in the men.

Eugene finds himself at odds at first with the platoon bully (Mulhern) and a fellow New Yorker named Arnold Epstein (Parker), who takes on Toomey and anyone else with razor sharp logic and observations.   Eugene writes down his thoughts in his diary, and it is Arnold who tells him to stand by his words regardless of how they make anyone, including him, feel.   "If you compromise your thoughts, you are a candidate for mediocrity," he tells Eugene.  

Eugene, along with fellow platoon mates on a weekend pass, visit a local prostitute before heading to the local USO dance where Eugene falls in love with Daisy (Miller) at first sight.   These scenes drag on without sufficient payoff to make them worth our while.   The most intriguing person in Biloxi Blues is Toomey, mostly because Walken is the type of actor we watch simply to see what weird thing he'll say or do next.   

It is unintentionally amusing to observe the movie's anachronistic World War II timeline.   The movie takes place in July 1945 with the soldiers viewing newsreels of Allied forces beating the Germans in Sicily and cheering wildly.   Toomey swears to send Epstein straight to Berlin following basic training, but these characters should know that Germany surrendered in May 1945 and the war in Europe was long over by summer.   Even the Japanese were teetering on the edge of capitulation in July.   

But Biloxi Blues wasn't made for any deep thought or to invite introspection.   Eugene expresses in voiceover narration that his army stint was the best time of his life, despite all evidence to the contrary.  In the army barracks of Neil Simon's world, perhaps such sentiments are understandable.