Catch-22 (Widescreen)

I do admit, this movie is better than I thought it would be. I'm especially happy with Bob Newhart's Major Major, the Chaplain, and Major Danby. My only problem is that many of the characters aren't portrayed to the best of their abilities, considering how well the book fleshed them all out. The best example is Balsom's take on Colonel Cathcart. In the book, Colonel Cathcart is prim, proper, and insane. In the movie, he is simply a crude, crusty old soldier, reminicent of Ernest Borgnine in "All Quiet on the Western Front." Though he is good when interacting with Dreedle. Orr is good in this, but maybe just a touch creepier than he should be. Milo is just wasted, and a little bland. Orson Welles is surprisingly good, but that is in direct effect of the good writing of his scenes.
Alan Arkin gets off to a slow start, but becomes very good as the film picks up speed. The Snowden films are great.

My main problem with the film, however, is that two very important characters from the book are completely and utterly not in the movie: Clevinger and Dunbar. Clevinger, while only in the first few chapters of the book, had a lot of very interesting things to say about Yossarian's behavior, and would have just been a good character to have. Dunbar, on the other hand, actually had a very large part in the book, serving as Yossarian's side-kick. He also delivered the classic monologue about boredom being the key to a seemingly-longer life. A great piece of writing that would have worked well with the rest of the film.
All in all, I suppose the main thing that would have made this movie better is an extra half-hour, so that more of the classic scenes could have been used. But still, surprisingly good.


It's not the book - what movie is?   June 1, 2004
I read Catch-22 many years ago. Loved it. I've seen Catch-22 the movie several times. Loved it. But they are different. You are not going to get every nuance of the complex, convoluted book into the movie, but it is a good approximation. The movie works on its own, mostly due to the collection of oddball characters and circumstances. The long list of big named actors did a good job. However, the cinematography may be the star, here. As an "anti-war" comedy, this ranks near the top.

The reasonably-priced DVD has a so-so commentary by director Mike Nichols with Steven Soderbergh.


Catch 22   May 3, 2004
i have read the book Catch 22, by joseph heller, its an amazing book which i will recomand every person to read.

Catch 22 is a marvels book, which shows the impact of WW2, and the Army over soldiers. The book starts telling us about the second half of ww2, Yossarian, the main character, is a captain in the air force squadron on the island of Pianosa, near the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Even though he is a great soldier, he hates the war and killing, mainly because his friend Snowden died in his arms. Yossarian wants to stay alive and he know that fighting in WW2 wont give him a good chance for living, so for that he goes and pretends to be wounded so he could stay in the hospital and not go out to fight. But as well this doesn't work for a long time and the people in a higher level then him keep on sending him into the war to fight. So he doesn't know what to do for a while, after couple of days/ weeks he realizes that the perfect way of getting out of the army and the war, will be telling he is insane. This brings me back to my point before the summery, in the thesis, Catch 22. Catch 22 also is found in between character, for example when he went with his friend Nately to Rome, Nately falls in love a Hoe and basically tries to get her, but as soon as she notices him back and return his love back he gets killed. So after Nately's death Yossrian was in a shock, thinking about how the war took his friends away, and how people around him don't realize they r in a war. After a while being in Rome he gets arrested for being in Rome without a pass. He gets arrested and his Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn, which offers him later on a choice, either face a court-martial or be released and sent home with an honorable discharge. There is only one condition in order for him to be released, he must approve of Cathcart and Korn and state his support for their policy, which requires all the men in the squadron to fly eighty missions. As he thinks about it, he chooses to run away to Sweden, which gives him the power to do what ever he wants and not going after Catch 22's rules.