Private Benjamin

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Adam K an underrated movie for sure. can rewatch this always Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/11/25 Full Review Ross B Have not seen this for 44 years. Little recollection from first viewing but this time it was pretty lame. Simply a vehicle for Goldie Hawn, who is adorable. But everything else is hack! Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 12/30/24 Full Review Mike P (Spoilers) Hilarious service comedy; this is Hawn's best; one of the better comedies of the last generation. Ths movie puts fellow service comedy MASH to shame! It's much, much better than that misogynistic piece of garbage! And Stripes was a blatant ripoff of this. Gene Siskel called this a "female Beetle Bailey"; which is about right. Maybe a Mrs. Beetle Bailey with a feminist twist? We have an unlikely trajectory here where a spoiled Jewish Princess is conned into joining the army by recruiter Harry Dean Stanton. This brat gets her comeuppance in a hilarious series of service comedy set pieces; classics all of them; and then our heroine unexpectedly gets a taste of self esteem and decides to take her life and her self a little more seriously; and with a little more respect. It's a nice twist and a real surprise for the audience. Real life BFFs Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan are just wonderful here as foils; as recruit and seargent; respectively. They have great chemistry ; the sadistic Nurse Ratched against crazy dame Lucille Ball. Brennan would go on to win an Emmy for playing this role in the tv series; and Hawn was nominated for an Oscar for her comedic chops (a rarity) for her flawless performance; which is tailer made to her; the role, the writing, the story and the character arc, and it all works beautifully. The script was also nominated for an Oscar; deservedly. Also nice, inspiring (and unsung) score by Rocky composer Bill Conti; it's really quite lovely. This movie is full of little surprises like that; it's not just a goofy service comedy. The only flaw here is that the movie repeats itself in the final act. After leaving the army with honors; Benjamin marries a beautiful French millionaire, (Armand Assante; the epitome of her lifelong man-fantasy); who first sweeps her off her feet; and who then immediately swats her down to subservient little girl status; only to have her rebel again and walk out on the wedding; redeeming her self esteem once again at the ending. This is nice, but we just saw this in part 1! This is a repeat of the first act thematically; where she goes from subservient little princess to strong self-dependent heroine at the end. Instead of repeating the first act, they should have pushed things forward in the second act. Maybe Judy has to do a rescue mission of a bunch of fellow recruits, (a la Stripes; which has a better second act than this). Something which challenges the character more; rather than have her regress and repeat herself. But even taking that into consideration this is still an excellent comedy. Hawn's hilarious turn as a goofball recruit and her hilarious stunts during basic training are worth the price of admission alone; and more than redeem the draggy second act. Look fast for PJ Soles and Craig T Nelson in the background. Highly Recommended. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 12/01/22 Full Review robert p Goldie Hawn is a Genius from her humble beginning on Rowan and Martin's Laugh in! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member "Private Benjamin" works best as a comedy when we're following Hawn's character through boot camp, but this only encompasses 50%, if not less, of the film's focus. The other 50-51% runs on an outdated level of comedy that pokes fun at stereotypical blondes. It becomes rather tiresome and irritable long before the credits roll. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Feel good movie. Funny. Classic Goldie 7/10 Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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