Hard Knox

I liked Conrad-and-West as Gregory Boyington-and-Sergeant Andy Micklin in 'Black Sheep'...er, I mean as Duke Ramsey-and-Sergeant O'Brien in 'The Duke'...er, I mean as Coach Brandon-and-Superintendent Turner in 'Coach Of The year'...er, I mean as Colonel Knox-and-Gunnery Sergeant Tuttle in 'Hard Knox'. Two actors with very well-developed 'signature characters' [of which the best-known example is Burt Reynolds playing a hard-driving good IL' boy] playing those characters yet again in yet another enjoyable bit of pulp-fluff. It's certainly not classic cinema, it's not Citizen Kane, it won't do the job when I'm in the mood for Steinbeck, but the 'signature character buddies' formula works for these guys...it's one of the better feel-good good-vibes flicks I've yet seen.

This is like every last one of them: gruff but good leader, good boys who take their place as leaders, bad boys who learn to better channel their energy, wimpy boys who find strength, jokers who get serious, enemies who become friends, war games between factions, girls who get respect, etc., etc., and on and on.... This one has all of them. The light scenes get a few laughs, the suspense scenes are mildly tense, and the touching scenes bring tears to your eyes (not really). All in all, if you have a choice between watching this movie and cleaning the bathroom, I recommend watching this.

"Hard Knox" is quite possibly the worst movie ever made, and I mean that as a serious compliment. Too many bad movies have some kind of redeeming quality to them -- an occasional funny line, a genuine moment of drama or romance or horror -- which makes them wholly unremarkable movies.

Fortunately, Hard Knox has none of those. The entire dialog and plot consists of one bad cliché after another. If these two-dimensional characters were any flatter, they'd be invisible. About 95% of the movie takes place in one setting -- the military academy -- so sadly, there's no bonus points for exceptionally bad special effects, but the dialog is so divorced from anything that would ever be uttered in reality, it easily makes up for it.

If you're the kind of viewer who enjoys really bad movies, I'd highly recommend dragging out the bong and throwing this bad boy on. But if you have a low tolerance of absolute sh*t, well, you'll probably never stumble across this movie anyways.