In the Army Now

Bones Conway (Pauly Shore) and Jack Kaufman (Andy Dick) get fired from the electronics store. Even Bone's girlfriend Gabriella (Fabiana Udenio) can't save him. They join the Army Reserves for water purification. Their drill Sergeant is Sgt. Ladd (Lynn Whitfield). They join an unit with fierce Christine Jones (Lori Petty) and nervous Fred Ostroff (David Alan Grier) who is afraid of everything. Then the group is sent off to Chad to fight Libya. The four get on the bad side of special forces Sgt. Stern (Esai Morales). Their truck breaks down, they come under attack and they are lost in the desert.

This is actually a good Pauly Shore movie. What does that mean exactly? It's a passable comedy and he's not annoying. His antics are kind of endearing like his hair cut. It has a few good laughs and he has three good co-stars to back him up. It's not hilarious or anything. But it is barely good enough to recommend.

Although there's a lot of people who don't like Pauly Shore, apparently you either love him or hate him, I have to say that I found this film quite amusing. It takes me back to my younger days when I was a weekend warrior. The group I hung out with I'm afraid, all people who were trying to get out of the real army and Vietnam joined the reserves as I did. We were about as military a group as Pauly Shore, Andy Dick, and David Alan Grier. Back then though we were not side by side with Lori Petty. The Army in its infinite wisdom knew better than to activate our crowd for Vietnam.

But that's not what happens here. Pauly Shore and Andy Dick are a pair of misfits in civilian life and find they have a cash flow problem. That extra money for attending those Army Reserve drills sounds pretty enticing so they decide to be all that they can be on the weekends and two weeks in the summer.

But Libya and Chad go to war and like the Iraqi Desert Storm, the reserves are called up for a United Nations multi-national force. Actually Libya and Chad did have border conflicts for many years with the French attacking as protectors for Chad. Pauly, Andy, and their new friends David Alan Grier and Lori Petty are in the Sahara Desert as part of a water purification team, water boys as they're derisively called by those in the real army.

In The Army Now revives all the basic service comedy situations going all the way back to Abbott&Costello in Buck Privates. Especially in the training sequences. Pauly Shore and Andy Dick probably grew up on Bud&Lou, but they do the routines with a Generation X twist.

I liked the film and thanked God I was not in the situations that Pauly and the rest were in.

It's because this movie turned me onto Live (The Dam At Otter Creek) the song that plays while they are roaming through the desert. I didn't know Paul Mooney had a bit role in this until I watched it again. If you hate Pauly Shore (who isn't bad in this) you should at least like Lori Petty, Andy Dick, David Alan Grier and Lynn Whitfield.

While Son in Law is Pauly Shore's best movie, this is proves to be my personal favorite among his body of work. The premise of Shore being in the army is about hilarious as Leonardo DiCaprio demanding $25 million and getting it! Plenty of laughs either way. Anyway, this film was rather funny and sarcastic, satirizing the military and the macho attitudes which seem to be quite prevalent. While the cast (Shore, David Alan Grier, Andy Dick and Lori Petty) isn't going to impress you with their firm grasp of the thespian arts, it still was good stuff to watch. Also, Esai Morales and Art LaFleur both

provided solid supporting roles.

Whatever happened to Pauley Shore? I guess he's still around but you didn't hear much from him after this movie, which was a decent success. It was a surprisingly-good lightweight comedy with a bunch of likable goofs and weirdos from Glendale, California, and their adventures after they join the Army Reserves.

The language was pretty tame in here but there were a lot of sexual innuendos, too many for a PG rating but not surprising in a modern-day comedy. That comedy overall is good with some laugh-out-loud scenes.

Also, as with many films, the ending gets carried away. It was really dumb, but for most of this movie it was entertaining enough to certainly recommend if you need a laugh.