A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Judy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn) is a picky superficial newlywed who loses her husband (Albert Brooks) during wedding night sex on the bathroom floor. She's 28, married twice, and trained for nothing. Lying recruiter Jim Ballard (Harry Dean Stanton) tricks her to join the army. She's in for a rude awakening and wants to go home. Captain Lewis (Eileen Brennan) is her tough trainer. After being belittled by her father, she decides to stay rather than go home getting taken care of. She becomes a great private and rout the opposition in a war game. While on leave in New Orleans, she meets french doctor Henri Tremont (Armand Assante). Later, he would propose but he isn't prince charming.Goldie Hawn is fun and Eileen Brennan is terrific. They are both great and the movie is actually uplifting. The movie should probably stay with basic training. The second half isn't quite as compelling and the comedy dries up. The movie is better off expanding on the first half and cut out the second half.

Sigh. The innocent 80's and what used to pass for a movie way back when. I remember first seeing this movie in the theater 30 years ago and being mildly amused by Judy and Company. I should have left it at that.While camped-out at a friend's horse ranch, I found the movie on VHS and decided for a trip down memory lane. Big mistake. How this over-rated comedy ever became nominated for THREE Oscars baffles me to no end. Guess it was a SLOW year for comedy in 1980.The screenplay and acting is on the same level as a bad sit-com. The acting is cardboard and sophomoric. The plot? Beyond simplistic. The entire package presented couldn't suspend the disbelief of present-day 12 year old.Just a pile of disorganized fluff that never should have made the big screen but should have been adequate for a made-for-TV-movie now long forgotten and mercifully so.

In "Private Benjamin" Goldie Hawn demonstrates what made her a star: blond hair, child's eyes, and an astounding ability to laugh at herself. Here she sends herself up as both a dumb blond AND a Jewish princess, and the formula would serve as the prototype for every film she made afterward. If this is Goldie at her best, why isn't the film considered a classic? You ask a good question, friend...The first hour of the movie is delightful. Fish-out-of-water Judy Benjamin joins the Army. Judy aggravates the tough-as-nails drill instructor (Eileen Brennan), develops as a soldier and a person, triumphs at war games and inevitably dances to Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" with her fellow cadets in the ultimate display of female bonding. (Sync cycles, anyone?) Hmmmm... that's odd. The movie's over. But according to the box there's still an hour left. What could possibly come next? A bizarre adventure in which Officer Judy gets stationed overseas, falls in love with a Frenchman, and has to decide whether to marry him or re-enlist in the army. I found my mind wandering during the second-half... I started making mental grocery lists, naming state capitals... it was very difficult to stay focused on a movie that had so clearly lost its focus. The scattershot second-half of the movie only serves to undo the good of the first half. Maybe this is why the movie fails to endure as a classic.Still, there's a lot of laughs here, with Goldie Hawn at her best.GRADE: B-

A harmless, cute movie that rests nearly entirely on the talents of two women: Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan.Hawn is an expert comedienne and her string of late 70s/early 80s comedies are nearly all perfectly watchable now. Brennan is a total hoot as a drill sergeant who you love to hate. The movie is basically an all-female version of "Police Academy" or "Stripes" (which would come out a year later).I don't have anything else to say about this movie but I have to have ten lines of text to get my comment approved.Grade: B+