Caddyshack (1980)

Starring - Chevy Chase; Rodney Dangerfield; Ted Knight; Michael O'Keefe & Bill Murray Director - Harold Ramis MPAA - R I remember really enjoying this movie when I saw it years ago. I guess my memory really sucks. There is very, very little that is funny in Caddyshack. The laughs are few, and far between, and what there are really aren't that great. Caddyshack, as the name implies, more or less centers on one young caddy working at an exclusive country club. Michael O'Keefe plays said caddy. Why they cast this unknown, fairly untalented actor in the lead role is completely beyond me. The movie doesn't seem to have a real plot, just a series of scenes that are little more than opportunities for the rest of the cast to mug at the camera. The only real story, if you can call it that, was a subplot involving the mentally disturbed greens keeper, Bill Murray, who is having his own private little war against a gopher who is ruining the course. Most of the marginal laughs come from Rodney Dangerfield and Ted Knight mugging and overacting for the camera -- with painfully limited success. Bill Murray is slightly amusing in places, but fairly wasted. The biggest waste of all is Chevy Chase, who didn't even crack a smile on my face with his character's lame Zen-like approach to golfing. There are a few decent scenes involving the interaction between Dangerfield and Knight, but they are far too infrequent to carry the movie. I guess that's what you get for basing a story around an unknown kid. I'm not sure what the writers of this thing were thinking of, but I really think it was something far removed from comedy as they were putting pen to paper. Nothing about this movie works. It wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that this thing wasn't going to fly. Most of the scenes just couldn't possibly be funny. It's as if the writers where off in their own little brain damaged world. I'm sure scenes involving Chevy Chase and his oneness with the golf ball were supposed to be funny. In reality, they were painfully embarrassing to watch. There is a scene at the club pool where all the caddies go wild for the "hot babe" of the movie walking by in her bikini. Olive Oil would have filled out this swimsuit better than this girl. Everything about this movie was just completely implausible as far as the comedy was concerned. Maybe if you were drunk out of you mind or high off some sort of illegal narcotic this thing might be funny. But for the rest of us, stay the hell away from Caddyshack. 3/10 Reviewed June 20, 1999 by Joe Chamberlain