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Renaissance Man (1994)

Director: Penny Marshall

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1 review

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Unemployed ad exec Bill Rago (DeVito) lands a civilian posting at a US Army base. He's to teach basic comprehension to eight 'squeakers' - the slowest new recruits. Armed only with an intuitively unmilitary intelligence and a well-thumbed copy of Hamlet, he does just that. Penny Marshall's film couldn't be more sincere. But don't let the poster fool you: this is no comedy, it's a two-hour-plus English lesson. Very much a product of the Clinton era, the movie has serious political intentions. It's an exhortation to America to face up to her social and spiritual malaise with a sense of responsibility, discipline and humanity. Too bad the director's such a lousy propagandist. In essence, a painfully earnest sit-com.

Author: TCh

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Mel Nichols said...

Posted on Jun 10 2011 21:50 The film, in my opinion, was well done and deserves more credit for it'ss historical content. It brought back memories of 1951 and Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. where I had completed infantry basic and Leadership School while I awaited assignment to OCS. This was shortly after the Army became "integrated." The typcial infantry company was made up of four platoons. In this case our company consisted of three white platoons and one black platoon. Some integration, hun? I (I'm white) was platoon sgt. for the black platoon. The movie meant quite a bit to me as I understood many of the nuances hinted at in the movie.

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