Basic Training
Basic Training
R | 01 November 1985 (USA)
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Melinda comes to Washington DC to visit her friend Debbie, and to find a job in government, where she hopes to do her part to make it better. She gets a lower echelon administrative position at the Pentagon, and finds things pretty slack. Her boss seems to be more interested in getting into her pants than trying to find lost data on the Russians. Melinda resists his advances and begins working her way up in the Pentagon, finding subtle ways of getting her policies implemented by manipulating the slovenly males that populate the Pentagon, including finding a way to defuse the mounting conflict with the Russians

Reviews
Steinesongo

Too many fans seem to be blown away

ChampDavSlim

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

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Guillelmina

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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Winifred

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

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Tim (tim_sparks)

This is "I spit on your Grave" meets "Stripes," as long as you give Bill Murray some great big mammoth hooters and remove all ability to act from him and all his costars. And add some naked shenanigans. And disembowel the plot, and get the crew drunk before rolling the cameras.This genre-raping foray under the skirt and into the wide open legs of the United States Military is a penetrating yet ultimately impotent one-eyed glimpse into what's wrong with our national defense, if by "national defense" I mean "production value of most risqué movies shot in the 80s." Its come hither skin bare plot can really rev up your engine and cause your flagpole to tent in the post patriotic way. Assuming you are doped up on enough caffeine to give an elephant the shakes.The deliberate (?) non-acting of the "threes company wannabe" female costars is right up there with Leonard Nemoy's Strawberry Fields forever performance. I'll always remember the "toss the groceries 3 inches through the air to your friend" moment. No matter how much therapy I go through.My favorite moment is when the lead tells the other girls that she was wondering when any actual work got done at her job, all she saw was skirt chasing. And the other two bimboobles cackled.Oh wait, no, my favorite moment was when I shut the movie off and tried to cut my jugular with a spork from Taco Bell. I owe my pal Dave big-time for stopping me and prying the spork from my hands and talking me down from a bad decision. Anyways that was my favorite moment, the shutting of the movie off. It will be your favorite moment too, no matter when it happens.The perfect companion-piece to any other movie that needs a movie like this next to it in order to make that movie seem great.

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lost-in-limbo

Something you would find on up late night TV, "Up the Military" is amusingly straight-forward, madcap 80s sexploitation comedy produced by none other than Playboy enterprises. The wonderfully attractive Ann Dusenberry plays Melinda -- a headstrong lady who moves to Washington with big ambitions to make some sort of difference. There she moves in with her friend Debbie and her ditsy flatmate Cheryl. Debbie manages to get Melinda a job at her work… the Pentagon. She starts off as an administrative sectary, but her boss Lt. Cranston seems more interested in getting to know her intimately than doing his work. However this isn't just her own boss, as all the military officers seem to have nothing more than sex and women on mind. This makes her uncomfortable, but she comes to the realization that she could use it to her favour to get what she wants and move up the ranks. A capable Dusenberry is the film's backbone in a straight-laced performance, which transforms into seductive empowerment. Where she goes on to sensationally manipulate the sexual advancements to her own advantage. As she dominates and teases her way to the top, as she knows what makes these men weak at the knees. She played a very similar role three years earlier in "National Lampoon's Movie Madness", but this one is a lot better. The playful cast features some salty beauties in the shape of Rhonda Shear and Angela Aames who played the raunchy, free and easy characters Debbie and Cheryl. Will Nye is enjoyable as the patriotic, but sex craved Lt. Cranston. Director Andrew Sugarman's basic point and shoot handling keeps it quirky and smutty by upping the sleazy nudity and steamy sex quota with an interesting backdrop to set-up in. The military defence really does become the butt of the jokes. Some instances borderline on embarrassing, especially when the mushy music broke out to accompany the scenes of Melinda actually falling in love with a guy she met on a plane. But even with certain lame moments, it stayed watchable.Typical staples and clumsy execution can't knock that it remains a fun digestible low-budget sex comedy.

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tavm

You know, this sex comedy that actually played at our local Cinema 11 moviehouse at Bon Marche Mall (both now no more) in 1986 was something I had long wondered about concerning its sexually oriented humor. Well, I've now seen it on fancast.com and while I thought most of it was pretty lame and stupid, I did find a couple of scenes funny. The first was when Melinda (Ann Dusenberry)-after having enough with her superior at the Pentagon harassing her-decided to, on the advice of her best friend Debbie (Rhonda Shear), talk dirty to him on his phone and his reaction when he...you know. The other one was when another of her bosses was obviously getting serviced but the reporters she brings in just talk to him nonchalantly asking him questions that unintentionally, to them, become a series of double entendres. I think I might have chuckled on a few more lines and scenes but otherwise, Basic Training was pretty lame. Still, there's ample eye candy of Ms. Dusenberry, Ms. Shear, and their other roommate in Angela Aames as Cheryl both clothed and unclothed. So if that's what you're looking for...P.S. Ms. Shear came from New Orleans, which is a couple of hours from my current hometown of Baton Rouge in Louisiana.

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moviemaniac81

This movie gets my vote for the "Biggest piece of crap ever portrayed on film" award. I'm not kidding either. This movie had NO laughs at all, and I fell asleep TWICE trying to watch this utter mess of a movie. To make an example , "Basic Training" makes "Billy Elliot" look like "The Shawshank Redemption". Now that's bad.

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