Movie Review: Military Intelligence and You! - Page 4

In the spirit of films such as Zucker and Abrahams' Airplane! we see the "national threat level" go from Orange to Tangerine, from Tangerine to Butterscotch, and from Butterscotch to Autumn Harvest.

References to torture abound in the film, showcased by scenes from an older training film that, for the sake of the current story, takes place at a German prison camp called Dulag Luft (aka "the place where Germans question you"). Major Van Behn and Captains Ruening and Gruenich cajole, torture, and steal information from American GIs. Showing GIs being tortured in their cells, the narrator says, "As German evildoers turn up the heat on American GIs, Americans never treat prisoners this way. Our torture chambers are always kept at a comfortable 72 degrees Fahrenheit."

By the end of the film, we see something that generally only happens in the movies — particularly in instructional and propaganda films of the 40s and 50s. Thanks to the effort and skill of Captain Jack Smith (the photo analyst), we get a perfect big fat world war win where the winner gets the girl and America is exalted for the hidebound giant that she is. I won't be a spoiler and tell you how it all happens, but a conversation toward the end of the film shows that it's only Lt. Monica Tasty at Central Command who seems to be at least partially immune to America-itis, regardless of the fact that we win or we lose our wars. You're left to wonder how she could be such a fool to have dumped sweet Major Dunning and fallen for this merely lucky 'hollow shell.' Some girls are just a sucker for a pretty face. From Tasty's final facetious love scene with Major Reed:

REED: "If we can't go back to being myopic and self-centered, they really have won!"

TASTY: "But maybe if we thought about the rest of the world every day, we wouldn't have to 'come to its rescue' every twenty years!"

I think it's fairly obvious this relationship won't last beyond the physical; just as it's likely that intelligence will once again be cherry-picked or exaggerated to support a pre-conceived agenda.

Come next war, I was left with a distinct impression we could expect the same mistakes would likely be made all over again. Although General Tasker proclaims "Maybe attacking a convenient target doesn't make us manly or decisive. Maybe waiting for real intelligence does," we still get a sense the hasty Major Reed and the callous General Tasker are nature-bound to make more of the same mistakes in future wars because of their innate nationalistic shortsightedness, their overall character, and the human fallibility factor in analyzing intelligence.

Article Author: Jude Nagurney Camwell

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