the audience applauded

Good movie but grossly overrated

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Blistering performances.

This film starts with clues that it is to be a comedy....a light piano score that seems to indicate irony, closeups of Grammar's dryly funny testimony done with rosy light and all the settings a bit overly prettified. But yet, nothing particularly funny is happening. When Burton first reports to Partridge, his new high-level boss, there is a quick-moving monologue about the state of the recent projects from Grammar, and the whole thing seems to teeter on a joke about to happen, i.e. a contrasting quip from Burton, or a blow up by Grammar's character, but it never does. A little farther in, the film slows based on rather pedantic details, and everything discussed is deadly serious, including the plight of whistle-blowers in the military industrial complex. It was all interesting and viable enough to keep me watching, but I found myself wishing I was watching a documentary if this is a true story, OR a more serious docu-drama like the recent telling of the tobacco industry (The Insider), OR a quicker moving, slightly more absurd comedy with satiric bite (which is how the film looks, art-direction wise). That's a wide range of tone that would make it more enjoyable, but somehow the writing and look of this tip-toes between all of that and never commits to any of it.This is not to say it isn't interesting, but it does mean that a potential for a more important or entertaining movie was missed. The material is smart enough and thorough enough, it hurts to see this pootential wasted by a near-miss.

i first saw this movie well before coming into the military, and while i found it very entertaining, didn't fully appreciate it. having now been 3 years in, i can very much appreciate the humor of this fantastic satire. granted, there is a fair amount of hyperbole, and no, not everyone in the military is so very inept... but simply put, a few years working with military intellegence elevates my view of this film quite a bit.

Members of the Pentagon brass takes a direct hit in this witty Richard Benjamin satire about the efforts of a whistle-blower(Cary Elwes) to test a defective Bradley troop transport/combat vehicle. Kelsey Grammer plays Major General Partridge a wordy, self serving horse's ass. Mocking humor. Supporting cast includes:John C. McGinley, Viola Davis, Tom Wright and director Benjamin plays Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger.

The ending scenes are Bill Murray hokey, but the movie is surprisingly compelling. I was vaguely familiar with the facts behind the story, but I intend to read Mr. Burton's book now. The part of Burton's assistant seemed to me to be well played. Grammer's portrayal fit my perception of a Pentagon general, but his aides come out as just caricatures.