Sgt. Bilko is held together by the hilarious Steve Martin


onestar.gifonestar.gifonestar.gif Sgt. Bilko

There are two different types of humor in my book: physical humor, and dialogue humor. Dialogue humor is the easiest kind of humor in which the writers have to come up with funny stuff for the actors to say. Physical humor (which Lucille Ball excelled in) is very hard to get right, and it's usually women that get this perfected. In fact, I would say only two male actors in Hollywood have enough talent to get it right. They are Steve Martin and Jim Carrey. Steve Martin has always been one of my favorite comedic talents in Hollywood. My favorite movie of his was probably between All of Me and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. In both, he uses physical humor as well as dialogue (but not as much) to create funny situations. If I had my choice, I would rather see Martin act goofy and stupid than watch (usually painfully) Jim Carrey act stupid. But now Martin comes up with a gem that proves his dialogue humor can be just as funny as his physical humor.

Martin plays Sgt. Ernie Bilko, a military commander who heads his own station at Fort Baxter. The movie opens with hilarious sequences where we learn what Bilko likes to do in his station: gamble. A new recruit is sent to his station, but is warned by Colonel Hall (Dan Aykroyd) to keep his money hidden. This pretty much sets up the basic plot of the movie, although the plot is pretty thin. But Martin keeps the movie's pace up and keeps it from descending into a stupid, and unfunny comedy. The plot is basically this: Sgt. Bilko is running illegal gambling operations from inside his military station and gets away with it by tricking everybody who tries to find a flaw in his leadership. However, when an old enemy, Major Thorn (played by Phil Hartman, who I didn't recognize until he spoke his first line), visits Fort Baxter and finds out that Bilko is there, he decides to stay and get revenge.

A few years before, Bilko setup a boxing match that went awry. Major Thorn accidentally gets caught finding the money Bilko paid to one of the boxers, and it looks as if Thorn is paying off the boxer. He is sent to Greenland where he waits to get revenge. That is pretty much the entire plot, along with a subplot with Bilko and his bride-to-be (maybe) Rita Robbins (Glenne Headley, who happened to work with Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). The subplot is pretty funny, but not nearly as funny as the main plot as Bilko outsmarts Thorn everytime he thinks he has a lead on a flaw in his leadership abilities.

The three main leads are hilarious, but it seems that the rest of the cast was wasted with stupid dialogue. Martin, of course, steals the show. He mixes the best of dialogue and physical humor together and he makes the movie ten times more entertaining than it would have been if, say, Jim Carrey was in the lead. Headley is given little to do except to provide Martin with situations that he has to talk his way out of. But Headley does hold her own in those few scenes, and gives a genuine performance. Hartman is the other funny character, but not nearly as funny as he could have been. But it's not Hartman's fault. It's the writers who seemed to give Martin all the best lines and left garbage for everyone else.

Sgt. Bilko is rated PG for some language and mild thematic elements. Most comedies based on TV are usually disappointments (look at It's Pat or The Addams Family). Sgt. Bilko, though, is very funny and provided great and genuine humor. Of course, most of that humor came from Martin who is a riot to watch. I couldn't stop laughing at all his crazy antics, but when I did stop laughing, it was usually when Martin wasn't on the screen. Maybe they should just make a movie and let Martin run wild (actually, this comes close). Now that would be something I would pay for.


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