You won't be disappointed!

Excellent but underrated film

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Let's be honest, Steve Martin is one of the best comedic actors of his generation, a very talented man. One of the best quotes he ever said as an actor comes from this film, "All I want is an honest week's pay for an honest days work." This is a great comedy film, also starring the late Phil Hartman, Dan Aykroyd, and a young Chris Rock. Truly a Saturday Night Live fan's dream team.The story, based on an idea from the Phil Silvers Show is about an aloof, and sometimes nonsensical Army sergeant who plays by his own rules and schemes. Who to play the part better than Steve Martin? The guy has great comedic timing, and its like the part was written for him.Jonathan Lynn did a great job directing the cast, and he is probably one of the best comedy directors of the era, save for Dennis Dugan. If you like Steve Martin, you'll love this film, he makes it his own. And if you enjoy this film, watch THE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN or GREEDY.

I never watched the original show this movie is based off of. Apparently that's a good thing, as many who have say this film does a great disservice to it. This means I can judge the film by its own merits, and I can therefore conclude it isn't very good.The plot basically revolves around Sgt. Bilko manipulating everyone around him so he can engage in gambling and similar activities on a military base. Throughout the entire film I not once sympathized with him as a character. Everything he does is to the detriment of the morale of his troops (who are even portrayed as incompetent in basic military matters) and his own love life is so bad that he forgets his own wedding.Steve Martin feels odd in the role, like he really doesn't want to be in it. Phil Hartman has the only real enthusiastic performance in the film as Thorn, Bilko's nemesis.Speaking of Thorn, he actually comes across as more of a hero than the actual "hero" character of Bilko. His only real "bad" behavior, until the end of the film, is that he actually wants to establish discipline in the army. He ends up getting sent to Greenland (portrayed as the equivalent of Siberian exile in Tsarist times) because of Bilko's own corrupt actions, but has now returned to put a stop to Bilko's activities. He also tries to win over Bilko's love interest (which is portrayed as a bad thing even though he seems much more interested in her than Bilko himself is.) The final confrontation between Bilko and Thorn is so bad. Basically, a hover tank is being tested to show that it can be used in the field. Thorn sabotages the tank by removing a vital part of its machinery, thus making Bilko look bad when it won't fire during the test. However, Bilko is sufficiently unsympathetic as a character to not even bother firing the tank, instead using C4 explosives to detonate the targets so as to give the impression that the tank is firing.Thorn angrily points out that there was no way Bilko could have fired on the targets. Out of desperation he pulls out the very part of the tank that prevents it from working properly, thus exposing his scheme. Also Bilko just happens to have a tape recorder to record Thorn's outburst. Thus Thorn is exiled to Greenland once again and Bilko's manipulative trickery emerges triumphant, even though Thorn clearly showed that the tank could not have fired and that Bilko was very obviously deceiving the military officers and congresspeople assembled to watch the proceedings.Also Thorn's scheme could be fixed by simply reinserting the missing part back into the tank, whereas Bilko's scheme meant the army has to pay for the expenses of targets destroyed by C4 instead of tank shells. So even when Thorn carries out a truly malicious and selfish act, he's *still* not as bad as Bilko.Also this is a comedy and the vast majority of jokes are unfunny.It's not a terrible movie by any means, but I didn't enjoy it.

OK, Steve Martin is not Phil Silvers. Martin is from a middle-class background in Waco, Texas; Silvers was a New York street kid who probably had to hustle just to survive. It stands to reason, then, that Martin will--and should--play Bilko differently, which he does, even though he still has the money-making schemes going and, central to the plot, convincing his superiors that the hovertank works, which it does not, to keep himself from being shipped to Greenland and to keep Fort Baxter open.Dan Aykroyd as Col. Hall is just as much a patsy for Bilko as Paul Ford was on the television series, and I don't think Phil Hartman was so bad as the officer whom Bilko set up some time back by making it look like he's paid off a fighter to take a dive, got sent to Greenland, and now intends for Bilko to suffer the same fate. What's missing is that Bilko's platoon is largely faceless (they don't make enough use of Doberman, who was the real star of the television series), but in keeping with the updated setting from the 1950s to the 1990s, Bilko's immediate underlings are a woman and an African American.Also, the setting of Fort Baxter has changed from Kansas to California, although I think in the last year of the TV series the setting was moved to one Camp Freemont, California. Here, too, Bilko's girlfriend is a civilian schoolteacher; on the series, as I recall, it was a WAC.But nitpicking aside, Martin's Bilko, like Silvers', in effect runs the base, gets up when he wants, toadies up to the brass, and generally comes off as a sergeant I'll bet everybody who ever wore an Army uniform would have liked to have. No one ever really gets hurt by his scams (except maybe Thorn, who ends up back in Greenland at the end). And somehow he seems more harmless than Silvers although both are, as someone else once put it, "Bugs Bunny in a uniform." Catherine Silvers, Phil Silvers' daughter, who plays one of the auditors brought in by Thorn to try to get something on Bilko, even praised Martin for not trying to imitate her dad.There's also a connection to "My Cousin Vinny" here; Jonathan Lynn used Mitchell Whitfield and Austin Pendleton in that film as well.I do agree with the contributor who said that the funniest line comes at the end, when the producers acknowledge the "total lack of cooperation from the United States Army."

Steve Martin is At His Best in 'Sgt. Bilko'. He delivers a hilarious & lovable performance, that easily is among his finest. And even as a film, 'Sgt. Bilko' is great fun!'Sgt. Bilko' Synopsis: Bilko runs the motor pool and has all sorts of scams going on like gambling, renting out military vehicles, and so on, which are all violations. 'Sgt. Bilko', an adaptation of the 1950s television series, turns out to be one great cinematic experience. The film is full of comedic moments, that definitely will you in splits. Nat Hiken & Andy Breckman's Screenplay is genuinely funny & very entertaining. Jonathan Lynn's Direction, is perfect. Cinematography, Editing & Art Design, are mention-worthy.Performance-Wise: Martin is the life of the show. He stands out from scene A to Z. Dan Aykroyd is first-rate. Phil Hartman is excellent as the bad-guy. Glenne Headly is wonderfully relaxed. Chris Rock, John Marshall Jones & Pamela Adlon are quite good. Others lend good support.On the whole, 'Sgt. Bilko' is great fun! A Must See for Martin Fanatics!