7. Stripes (1981)
Sony Pictures
Winger: I just wish I hadnt drunk all that cough syrup this morning. Stripes perhaps beats out Signs as being the best example of two-thirds of a great film. Murray and Reitman again teamed up, with Murray playing John Winger, a slacker who, after his life falls apart, decides to enlist in the army. While its always dangerous to overanalyse a film that features a bulletproof caravan its important to note what a symptom of its time Stripes was. America as a nation can be seen to culturally depict itself as a loser during the 1980s following defeats or unresolved conflicts in the Korean War, Cold War and Vietnam and so the choice of a film focusing on the military is a very curious one, particularly given the assortment of losers the film represents the fat John Candy, the uninterested Harold Ramis, and the doughy, slouched posture of Murray. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMZHrXtPUUc That makes the films final third, in which Czech-born director Ivan Reitman decided that a 1980s comedy was the perfect forum to make us all aware of the political strife the nation of his birth was going through, even more bizarre, as the film veers drastically into Saving Private Ryan territory in perhaps one of the most misplaced finales in comedy history. After absconding in said bulletproof caravan, Murray and his friends take it upon themselves to rescue a prisoner of war. Murrays performance in the final act of Stripes is quite a sight to behold as he begins a bona fide action hero. Perhaps it was with this in mind that made George Lucas tempted to cast him as Han Solo in Star Wars.