Customer Reviews

Basic Training

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a TRUE B-Movie fan, so when it comes to B rate movies I have always realized not to expect oscar-like performances and/or creative writing, simply because THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY ARE FOR PEOPLE !! This movie IS a cheap and cheesy military spoof about horny men of power chasing flirtatious women with plenty of tease frames, dirty talk, full frontal nudity, sex, and ridiculously stupid and lame humor. Pure 80's nothing different or special. Rhonda Shear topless before her "USA Up All Night" days (before breast enhancements?) Ann Dusenberry topless. The "Basics" is this is a movie about women using their sexuality to take advantage of horny guys in order to get ahead (as usual). I understand what these movies are for, pure eye candy and extreme stupidity, funny or not funny ! You could get away with stuff like this, MAN!, I miss dem dayz !!

Has Ann Dusenberry ever looked better? Not to my knowledge. Her 'shucks I'm from Ohio' cornpone innocence makes all the raunchiness of a fantasy Pentagon in DC seem almost real. Pre-blonde Rhonda Shear is lookin good too, and you might remember Angela Aames as the hot blonde at the bar in the pilot episode + one (the first real episode) of "Cheers". Dusenberry has at least three really nice scenes: a garden party where she is lovely in an off shoulder dress; making an obscene phone call to her commander; and titillating the Soviet ambassador with a very slow striptease. No belly laughs but plenty of grins and smiles if you don't take it seriously. This movie does not have a cheap look and production values are high. If you haven't seen it in awhile, dig it out and watch it again. There's no real anti-military theme here, either. It's all in fun.

Ann Dusenberry rules as a well intentioned Pentagon employee who gets sexually harassed on her way up.It's a must see!!

I suspected going into the film Basic Training (1985) that it would be pretty much the same, mindless, dumb sex comedy prevalent throughout the early to mid 1980s, but after watching the film last night I found myself wondering at what point the comedy was going to kick in...it was pretty mindless and plenty dumb, but hardly funny...written by Bernie Kahn ("Love, American Style", "Valley of the Dinosaurs"), and directed by Andrew Sugerman, in his first (and last) feature length film, the movie stars Ann Dusenberry (Jaws 2, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies). Also appearing is former Miss Louisiana Rhonda Shear ("USA Up All Night", Frogtown II), apparently prior her augmentation, Angela Aames (H.O.T.S., Bachelor Party), Will Nye (Talking Walls), Marty Brill (The Pope of Greenwich Village), William A. Forester (The Pajama Game), and Walter Gotell, probably most famous for his reoccurring role as General Anatol Gogol in James Bond features such as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), and For Your Eyes Only (1981) to name a few.

As the movie begins we're in a large office doing a slow pan across the walls...we hear a woman's voice speaking to a General about some sort of anti-tank weapon (the woman is a representative of some company the manufactures military weaponry). Seems the General is so interested he approves the purchase, just about the time the camera finishes its pan revealing two, nekkid women sitting squarely on the General's desk..ho ho, what salesmanship! Whatever...soon after we meet Melinda (Dusenberry), and attractive, idealistic woman from a small, Midwestern town, relocating to Washington D.C. as she wants to get a job within the gooberment and make a difference. She moves in with a pair of nymphomaniacs named Debbie (Shear) and Cheryl (Aames) who end up getting Melinda a secretarial job at the Pentagon, where they both happen to work. As it turns out the Pentagon is filled with bumbling, idiotic, and infinitely sleazy officer types who spend their days groping and boning anything and everything in a skirt rather than doing any, actual work. Around this time we see a cleaning woman inadvertently erase all the military's top secret information pertaining to Russia's defenses by accidentally turning a computer on with her mop handle. Eventually Melinda gets word she's going to be fired, as her boss is upset that she keeps rebuffing his advances, so she decides to play their game by her own rules, at least this was how it was put in the theatrical trailer. She dresses up like a hootchie mama and begins manipulating her way up the chain of command, wielding whatever power each subsequent office provides as the figureheads of the respective offices are, as I mentioned previously, incompetent morons. Eventually she engages in a secret mission to fleece the lost Russian military data from an amorous Russian ambassador (Gotell) which ultimately results in something called `Operation Beaver Drop'...oh bruther...

Now I'm not some snobby cinematic a-hole type who can't enjoy some good old fashion, bawdy lowbrow humor, but this film was just odious, obnoxious, and tedious. The comedy consists of sleazy and obvious innuendos, the kind you'd normally get with a really lousy Vegas comedian who specializes in blue, and that's about it. As a result, the movie comes off like a lame skit that runs a tiring hour and a half. I thought it an interesting choice the writer deciding not to include an actual plot in the story, but then why clutter up a feature with such trivial element? Better to leave the audience adrift in a celluloid sea of trite, dingy gags peppered with a handful of shots of half nekkid women. There are a whole slew of sequences that have no other value other than to eat up screen time or present a bit of cleavage. There were a few running gags throughout, the main one being how the fact the Pentagon had lost all of its critical Russian defense data, and that fact was only supposed to be known by a few, key individuals, but it soon becomes known to just about everyone, even the guy who fixes the typewriters. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from something like this, only everyone comes off all the much worse given the shoddy and idiotic material. I kinda felt sorry for Ms. Dusenberry as it seems she should be appearing in much better features than this, but whatever...as far as skin, there's about four or five scenes, many of them brief, featuring some female flesh, the best being near the end as Ms. Dusenberry doffs her top. She may not have been built like the proverbial brickhouse, but she was a tight, little package, one that almost made up for the rest of the film...almost. I did like the opening aerial shots of the Pentagon, as it gives good perspective as to just how huge that friggin' place actually is...I did learn a number of things from this film...

1. Vital, top-secret data kept on a computer in a high security area can be easily erased by the push of a button.
2. The more critical the data, the less likely the gooberment is likely to keep it backed up.
3. The Pentagon is populated by a surprising large number of socially retarded, incompetent sleaze balls and nymphomaniacs who engage in promiscuous activity at the drop of a hat..
4. Russian ambassadors entrusted with vital information regarding their country's defense will crack like an eggshell at the sight of Ann Dusenberry's exposed female bosom.
5. If you're a female and you want to get ahead within the Pentagon, dress like a floozy and flirt your ash off.
6. Rhonda Shear likes to be on top.

All in all this is just a lousy film with a handful of skin shots, most likely not worth your time unless you're a huge fan of Ann Dusenberry and desire to see her topless and engage in some dirty talk on the phone (she's the only reason I gave this thing two stars)...if you're interested in a cheap and sleazy military type comedy, I'd suggest a film, recently released onto DVD, called Up the Academy (1980). It's not great, but it's heck of a lot funny than this dismal mess, and has some pretty quotable lines.

The picture, presented in fullscreen format, looks decent enough, and the Dolby Digital audio comes through all right, but that's not necessarily a good thing given the script and the number of really crummy, psuedo pop non descript 1980s songs included on the soundtrack. As far as extras there's an original theatrical trailer (the one presented has the movie titled Up the Military, which is what the film was known as for the UK release), and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

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