La caserne en folie: A messy, weird little slice of old-school comedy

So, La caserne en folie. Is it good? That depends entirely on how much patience you have for men in uniform running around in circles and yelling. If you like classic, messy slapstick, you might find some charm here. If you prefer movies that actually have a coherent plot or, you know, a point, you will probably hate this.

It feels like a collection of sketches that someone just decided to film without worrying too much about how they fit together. There is a lot of shouting. There is a lot of running into doors. It is all very loud, in that specific way early talkies tend to be.

There is a moment about halfway through where a character trips over a bucket that feels like it lasts for three full minutes. The camera just sits there, waiting for the joke to finish. It becomes almost hypnotic in its awkwardness. You start to wonder if the editor just went to lunch and left the reel running.

Honestly, the whole thing reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Perfect Day, but with way more military uniforms and significantly less payoff. At least that one had a sense of rhythm. This movie just kind of flops around until it decides to stop.

The Good, The Bad, and The Really Loud

• The uniforms are great. They look like they were pulled out of a costume closet from 1910 and never washed.
• Alice Tissot is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. She’s the only one who seems to know how to land a joke without breaking the furniture.
• The background extras in the mess hall scenes are hilarious. Half of them are just staring blankly at the wall, clearly wondering if they left their stoves on at home.
• The dialogue is mostly just people screaming about soup.

I found myself zoning out during the romantic subplots. They feel tacked on, like the studio told the writer, 'Hey, put a girl in it.' So they did. And then they forgot to give her anything interesting to do other than look surprised when someone drops a tray of plates.

It is not the worst way to spend an hour if you are feeling nostalgic for a time when comedy meant getting hit in the head with a baguette. But let's be real, you could be doing something else. Like staring at a wall. Or watching Manhattan Monkey Business for the fifth time.

There is no grand message here. No deep dive into the soul of a soldier. Just people being silly and failing at it about half the time. Sometimes that is enough. Usually, it is not. 🤷‍♂️