One would believe, with the talents of Goldie Hawn, that Private Benjamin would be a comedy smash hit. While it has its moments, it falls short of the mark needed for a great movie.
The first half is good. Goldie Hawn's Judy Benjamin lives a ritzy social life. Judy is the spoiled pampered princes who faces uncertainty and confusion about her future when her husband (in an all too brief occurrence by Albert Brooks) Yale dies on their wedding night.
Depressed, downtrodden, and seeking self-fulfillment. Judy decides to join the Army after visiting her local recruiting office. She is told about how wonderful the Army is, and decides to try it. Judy is convinced that the Army is like it's advertised on TV, with yachts and exciting adventures.
Predictably, Judy struggles through basic training with a mean drill sergeant. The other women in her platoon squad at first resent her, but gradually warm up to her, pulling pranks on the drill sergeant and laughing at Judy's jokes and campfire stories about her life. Goldie does a fine job with the material here. However, the script IS predictable, and strained. The last good part of the movie is the Thornbird's parachute training sequence to the song, "The Battle Hymn of The Republic." Than the movie falls apart in the second half. After basic training, Judy's squad is recruited to France where she reunites with family and friends at a bar. She quickly falls for a French man and the movie becomes a mess. It's never really explained why Judy would have feelings for such a man. At this point, the story almost becomes a totally different movie where the viewer no longer cares and just wants the movie to end. A rapid wedding is planned, but before the ceremony, Judy comes to the realization that the Frenchmen was just using her. He insults her, she responds by decking him, than says, "don't call me stupid" and walks out of the church, a liberated woman.
It is as if the writers ran out of the good Army material in the first half of the movie. Than they sloppily tacked on Judy's relationship to the Frenchmen, because they needed to stretch the movie for another half hour. The lesson here is you can't just take what would have been a good movie had it focused on Goldie Hawn in the Army exclusively, and tack on a subplot that makes no sense and offers no explanation for why it's there, other than to add time to the picture.
What could have been a 7/10 movie gets downgraded to a 5/10 because of this. There is not enough good story plot in Private Benjamin for it to succeed as a full-length movie.
The first half is good. Goldie Hawn's Judy Benjamin lives a ritzy social life. Judy is the spoiled pampered princes who faces uncertainty and confusion about her future when her husband (in an all too brief occurrence by Albert Brooks) Yale dies on their wedding night.
Depressed, downtrodden, and seeking self-fulfillment. Judy decides to join the Army after visiting her local recruiting office. She is told about how wonderful the Army is, and decides to try it. Judy is convinced that the Army is like it's advertised on TV, with yachts and exciting adventures.
Predictably, Judy struggles through basic training with a mean drill sergeant. The other women in her platoon squad at first resent her, but gradually warm up to her, pulling pranks on the drill sergeant and laughing at Judy's jokes and campfire stories about her life. Goldie does a fine job with the material here. However, the script IS predictable, and strained. The last good part of the movie is the Thornbird's parachute training sequence to the song, "The Battle Hymn of The Republic." Than the movie falls apart in the second half. After basic training, Judy's squad is recruited to France where she reunites with family and friends at a bar. She quickly falls for a French man and the movie becomes a mess. It's never really explained why Judy would have feelings for such a man. At this point, the story almost becomes a totally different movie where the viewer no longer cares and just wants the movie to end. A rapid wedding is planned, but before the ceremony, Judy comes to the realization that the Frenchmen was just using her. He insults her, she responds by decking him, than says, "don't call me stupid" and walks out of the church, a liberated woman.
It is as if the writers ran out of the good Army material in the first half of the movie. Than they sloppily tacked on Judy's relationship to the Frenchmen, because they needed to stretch the movie for another half hour. The lesson here is you can't just take what would have been a good movie had it focused on Goldie Hawn in the Army exclusively, and tack on a subplot that makes no sense and offers no explanation for why it's there, other than to add time to the picture.
What could have been a 7/10 movie gets downgraded to a 5/10 because of this. There is not enough good story plot in Private Benjamin for it to succeed as a full-length movie.