Starring: Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, Elliot Gould, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall and Fred Williamson
Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress
Won For: Best Adapted Screenplay
If more doctors were like this....we'd all be fucked.
MASH is what the title says it is. A literal mash-up of mini plot lines served up on the backdrop of the Korean War. The story centers around three surgeons played by Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Tom Skerritt, who use booze, sex and low brow comedy hi-jinx to balance their sanity while faced with the horrors of war. Although saying the story centers on them is a bit of an overstatement...there really isn't much story here.
The plot is mostly nonexistent, but I suppose that was the point. It's more a set of continuously flowing vignettes featuring many different characters. It's no wonder the film transitioned so easily into one of the most successful shows in television history. Traveling seamlessly through stories about Tokyo whorehouses, football games and the head nurse's pubic hair, MASH was practically destined to be told in an episodic format. Overall the film works, but in the end you don't feel attached to any part of it. The movie just kinda starts and then eventually it ends. There's absolutely zero closure here.
Don't let that discourage you though. MASH is entertaining and at times extremely witty. Some jokes fall flat, but most are well executed. Much of the film is improvised, but unlike our modern improvisational comedies by Judd Apatow or Will Ferrell, this feels natural and unforced. Sutherland and Gould are fantastic as egocentric martini drinking surgeons. Although, they are some of the WORST doctors I've ever encountered in screen history. Don't get me wrong, they're fully competent surgeons, but they spend more time playing golf, sleeping with nurses, and disobeying commanding officers when they should be trying to treat the soldiers. These guys are like the Police Academy of doctors. They're somewhere in between House and Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock. To put it simply, I'd rather be captured by Charlie, or whatever racist slang we called the Koreans, than receive treatment from Elliot Gould.
The film's director is the real star here. Robert Altman uses a combination of overlapping dialogue and tight zooms to create an atmosphere that sucks you in for the whole journey. I'm actually very excited to see his other Oscar nominated film Gosford Park (2000). I hope that film keeps the same style of organized chaos because it definitely worked here. While not a jaw dropping war epic or a laugh out loud comedic masterpiece, MASH certainly deserved it's Oscar nod.
Final Rating: B
Up next...Love Story (1970). I am fucking dreading this one.
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