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Good movie but grossly overrated

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Private Benjamin is a movie that could have been a comedy classic. It has an all-star cast led by the likes of Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, and Albert Brooks. The premise is comedy gold. Who wouldn't like a snobby, self-centered person put into his/her place by the military. The thing is, Private Benjamin only partly delivers on the promise of an endearing comedy. The first half of the film is solid entertainment filled with funny gags. However, the second half was stale and it left me with a sour taste in my mouth that diminished the overall quality and effectiveness of the movie.When Yale Goodman (Albert Brooks) dies after marrying his wife Judy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn), Judy decides to enlist in the United States Army. The Army recruiter, Jim Ballard (Harry Dean Stanton) paints her a picture about a wonderful life in the Army. But when she arrives to basic training, it is anything but that pretty picture. Now she must survive from the likes of her captain Doreen Lewis (Eileen Brennan), and the commander of the Army's elite paratroopers, Clay Thornbush (Robert Webber).If the movie only had a focus on the first half, this would have been a great movie. Judy, who always has been dependent on other people her entire life, really gets a rude awakening when she arrived at camp. That scene where she was trying to explain that she signed up for the army, but not this army to Captain Lewis and her fake understanding was really funny. I bet she loved cleaning those latrines! Watching her struggle through basic training is comedy gold. Whether it's crawling in the mud or going over brick walls, she has come to realize perhaps she made the wrong decision to join the military. The interactions between Captain Lewis and Benjamin may be the only reason to give this movie a watch.Then Clay Thornbush entered the picture. We abruptly go from a story about basic training to a segment about an older man making sexual advances on Judy. These scenes were mean-spirited and didn't make sense. Then we have illogical sequences featuring a romance between Judy and a Frenchman (played by Armand Assante). The whole post-basic training part of the movie was messy, incoherent, and did not fit well with the first half.This premise is the perfect premise for a comedic talent such as Goldie Hawn. In fact, Nancy Meyer's script was tailor made for her. Her character was made to be annoying at times, but Hawn did well with what she was given. But there is one performance that stands out above the rest, and that is Eileen Brennan as Captain Lewis. It's nice to see a female portray a tough-as-nails drill instructor. Not only is she tough, but she adds fake sweetness to her toughness. The chemistry she both Brennan and Hawn had is worth every penny.Private Benjamin could have been a better movie, if only it stuck with the basics. The first half was a well-done farce about military basic training, but the addition of not-needed characters and some rather abrupt personality changes took down the movie several notches. I was surprised how the movie was nominated for three Academy Awards. Sure maybe Eileen Brennan deserved her nomination, but I do not think Goldie Hawn was good enough for a nomination, and definitely not the screenplay. That being said, I still laughed from time to time and had some fun.My Grade: C

Goldie Hawn as Judy Benjamin is your typical Philadelphia Jewish princess with two husbands already, one quickly annulled, one expiring on their honeymoon night. Seeking something to give life meaning again she meets with an army recruiter and finds herself pushing Mississippi away from her numerous times as Private Benjamin.This turns out for Goldie Hawn to be one of her career roles, it even spawned a TV series though Hawn did not do it for the small screen. It also won her a Best Actress Oscar nomination for herself and a Supporting Actress nomination for her screen nemesis Eileen Brennan as her basic training company commander. Private Benjamin also got a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.Some 30 years earlier Rosalind Russell also found a home in the army when she did Never Wave At A WAC. A lot of similarities except that Russell was a good deal older when she decided to enlist. Her film was also more of a recruiting commercial for the Women's Army Corps.Hawn's army in 1980 was a great deal more integrated although we would not see women in combat roles until the Gulf War. Still Hawn goes through some rigorous training.She also has a good military mind, pulling out a war game sequence in a similar manner to The Dirty Dozen. She gets the goods on General Robert Webber so to speak and also has mixed results in the romance department with Armand Assante. As a woman who has now learned to be all she can be, she will not be a trophy wife for an Alpha male Frenchman.Funniest scene for me is Goldie complaining about the latrine facilities and Brennan showing her what she can do about it.45+ years later and Private Benjamin still a very good and very funny film.

I had heard different versions of what this was about, the most common mistake about the plot was that it was a true story about a lesbian female soldier LOL, so I'm glad I watched it and putt all that straight, from director Howard Zieff (The Dream Team, My Girl). Basically Jewish-American woman Judy Goodman (Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Goldie Hawn) marries Teddy Benjamin (Sam Wanamaker, Zoë's father), and it looks like she will be happy, but she is shocked when her new husband dies on their wedding night during sex. She one day after meets 1st Sgt. Jim Ballard (Harry Dean Stanton) who convinces her that life in the army is actually quite glamorous, and with no sense of worth anymore she decides to enrol herself. Of course when new Pvt. Judy Benjamin gets a rude awakening, and is forced into doing vigorous boot camp training, and also getting into trouble a lot she really wishes to get out of it, but as she gets to know the fellow recruits and the lifestyle she is determined to stick it out. During her time in service she does find another love interest with dashing French doctor Henri Alan Tremont (Armand Assante), but this is short lived as he has to return to Paris, and her promotion gives her more duties she must stick to. However they are brought back together again when she is sent Belgium, and Henri proposes marriage to Judy, which she accepts, but her boot camp officer Capt. Doreen Lewis (Oscar nominated Eileen Brennan) finds out he is a communist, and she is forced into deciding whether to stay with him or in the army. She does choose her new romance over her duty, and it is only later she discovers her love interest's controlling side, he tells her for example to sign a prenuptial agreement, and then worse she finds out he is still in love with his ex, and he has cheated on her with a maid. Judy realises on the day of the wedding that she can do anything she wants, and with Henri having been unfaithful in two instances she leaves him in the altar, and walks off into the distance to go and live a new life. Also starring Poltergeist's Craig T. Nelson as Capt. William Woodbridge, 12 Angry Men's Robert Webber as Col. Clay Thornbush, Barbara Barrie as Harriet Benjamin, Girl, Interrupted's Mary Kay Place as Pvt. Mary Lou Glass, Finding Nemo's Albert Brooks as Yale Goodman and Halloween's P.J. Soles as Pvt. Wanda Winter. I can agree with the critics, it is a bit of a one joke film, the joke obviously being that the army is full of female soldiers (which of course isn't completely real life) and that the leading character is wimpy and scatterbrained, but as that character Hawn does give a nice performance, and so does Brennan as her commanding officer, overall it is not a bad comedy. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Worth watching!

A harmless, cute movie that rests nearly entirely on the talents of two women: Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan.Hawn is an expert comedienne and her string of late 70s/early 80s comedies are nearly all perfectly watchable now. Brennan is a total hoot as a drill sergeant who you love to hate. The movie is basically an all-female version of "Police Academy" or "Stripes" (which would come out a year later).I don't have anything else to say about this movie but I have to have ten lines of text to get my comment approved.Grade: B+