Anthony's Film Review - Caddyshack (1980)

In this comedy, funny things do happen at a country club...

When it comes to comedy movies, they come in plenty of styles. They can vary in the degree of silliness, ranging from simple and real-life to exaggerated and outrageous. They can also vary in the type of humor presented, like funny spoken lines, physical comedy, and gross-out jokes. Then there's the subject of the humor, which could be pretty much anything, and whether the comedy incorporates a funny story or uses the story only as a backdrop for the jokes. Comedy has lots of ingredients, for sure.

Let's look at the 1980 comedy Caddyshack as an example. This is one of those comedy movies where the plot is minimal and noticeable only in the beginning as the setup. Here, it starts with a teenage boy who gets a job as a caddy at a country club in hopes of getting a caddy scholarship for college. That's pretty much it for the plot, because everything else that occurs involves little moments with multiple characters rather than one main story for a few main characters. It really is just a collection of jokes all taking place at the country club, whether in the clubhouse, on the golf course, at a swimming pool, or in the water just off the docks.

The type of humor here is variable. Rather than deliver only subtle everyday humor, out-of-the-ordinary funny lines, slapstick humor, gross-out humor, or outrageous silly humor, Caddyshack gives you a little bit of each. Just look at some of the things you can find here. There is a brief funny moment when a desk lamp is getting in the way between two conversing characters. But then you also have one man who can do damage with a golf club when he loses his temper, a sequence where multiple boats get damaged by a speeding boat, a quick fart joke followed a bit later by a vomit joke, a funny scene with a candy bar in a swimming pool that can appear gross depending on one's perspective, and a gopher burrowing under the golf course. The gopher is closest to the silly end of the comedy spectrum, because the gopher on screen is not a live animal but rather a puppet manipulated for comic effect.

So really, you don't know what kind of joke will come up next because the movie doesn't stick with one type. It's also amusing to see certain cast members involved with specific jokes. Ted Knight plays the man I mentioned who loses his temper while wielding a golf club, and he's pretty funny at it. Chevy Chase is also in this movie, and the humor he's associated with is the subtle kind. Then there's Bill Murray as the country club greenskeeper who tries to figure out a way to defeat the gopher. He ultimately comes up with a way, and it's one that's rather extreme for a setting as quiet as a golf course.

For me, the jokes mainly just made me smile. Only a few scenes made me laugh, and for just a second each time. So I didn't have a problem with the fact that Caddyshack presented different types of comedy. Rather, my rating for this movie is based on how funny it was for me. I am giving it an average rating for being funny enough to not make me fall asleep. That and the appearance of my favorite character in this movie: that pesky gopher.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Caddyshack, visit the Internet Movie Database.