I didn't start seeing Bill Murray / Chevy Chase movies when they were new until
Ghostbusters and
Fletch, and I was only 8 years old in 1980 anyway, so I only saw R-rated movies like
Stripes and
Caddyshack much later, on VHS. I watched
Caddyshack this weekend with my friends: Turd jokes, booger jokes, puke jokes, sexytimes, and Rodney Dangerfield's loose cannon rolling all over the deck. Chevy Chase was never this charming in his unenlightened 1970s way ever again, and Bill Murray channeled a character deified by a whole generation of stoners. This total mess of a movie only succeeds because it never tries to be more than it is, and for a movie that is ostensibly written and directed by grown-ups,
Caddyshack has a lowbrow high school sensibility that made it a winner.
