[PEOPLE: Directed by Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day, Year One, Analyze This/That, Multiplicity, Stuart Saves His Family, National Lampoon’s Vacation 1983), who co-wrote it with Brian Doyle-Murry (Captain K’nuckles from Flapjack!).
Starring some comedy GREATS: Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield. What a trifecta!
Also with Ted Knight (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Too Close For Comfort) as the douchebag old man. And the hot sexy chick (still can’t figure out what the point of including her in the movie was, not that I’m complaining) was Cindy Morgan (Falcon Crest, and one of the cyber babes from the original Tron movie). So sexy and she went nowhere… The petitions to put her in Tron Legacy failed. The main caddy, Danny, is Michael O’Keefe (Fred from Roseanne, Atlas Shrugged, The Hot Chick). That irish chick, Maggie O’Hooligan was played by Sarah Holcomb who really didn’t do anything else other than Animal House. You could say this was the movie that killed her career.
Funny thing – a character with only a line or two really looked like Cynthia Stevenson (Hope from Hope & Gloria). But we checked her IMDB and she was not listed. However, Jessica Lundy, who played Gloria from Hope & Gloria — is in Caddyshack 2! What a weird coincidence.
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Gopher murders cause man to win illegal bet.
QUIRKS: Comedy. Golf. Country club snobs. Some marijuana use. A few seconds of boobies.
GOOD STUFF: Great cast.
BAD STUFF: Poor storytelling. (See conclusion.) The humor is a bit dated, too.
CONCLUSION: People say this is one of the funniest movies of all time… and they are wrong. (Kind of like Risky Business in that respect.) It’s pretty much equally funny to the average comedy drek that’s come out of movie studies every week for decades. Which is to say that it’s funny, but nothing special.
THE CAST is special, but them being in the movie doesn’t fix the main flaws.
This film suffered from “summercampfilm-itis”, where lots of separate characters and antics are shown to the audience, but not related well enough for us to really know where the plot was going, or who the main character even is. The continuity and editing left a lot to be desired. Everything tied together at the end, but it just wasn’t the satisfying experience that everyone else’s rose-tinted praises caused us to expect.
I’d put this on par with any random post-2000 National Lampoon movie, except that it had an amazing cast of Grade-A comedy actors that are worth seeing (while Lampoon movies tend to star total nobodies that aren’t nearly as talented).
RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.2/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.5/5 stars–very good netflix! You knew we’d like this less than average!).
RECOMMENDATION: Worth seeing only because it’s considered an iconic classic, has a great cast, and has some moments – like the Baby Ruth scene – that simply MUST be seen.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Caddyshack 2.
MOVIE QUOTES:
Al Czervik: Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must’ve been something before electricity.
Carl Spackler: License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit – ever. They’re like the Viet Cong – Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote.
FRIENDS’ COMMENTS:
Most people like/love this movie… Here are selected quotes:
Rev. Xister: “I agree with you on Caddyshack, Clint. I think the big difference between movies like Caddyshack and say, Ghostbusters or a Monty Python flick is that the latter have a well thought out storyline to support the shtick. Caddyshack has the most basic of plots and the shtick supports the plot.”
Rev. Suds Pshaw: “Couldn’t disagree more. This film is in my top five of favorite comedies — 1) Ghostbusters, 2) Kentucky Fried Movie, 3) Animal House, 4) Up In Smoke, 5) Caddyshack. Caddyshack does come off as a series of one-liners. I agree if you take Dangerfield and Chase out of the equation the film falls flat. But it’s their delivery that raises the film up for me.”Music: Whitesnake – Here I Go Again
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