How I Won the War

It does some interesting things, kinda confusing with its tone, a few good jokes and it has Lennon, but it fails, ending up pretty boring

Bizarre, but Lester clearly isn't playing around. Not an anti-war movie so much as an anti-war movies movie. For whatever its flaws, I admire its experimentation.

"In didactic terms I don't think that it succeeds but I don't know that it's supposed to succeed." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2014/12/episode-41-first-richard-lester-episode.html

An... interesting film. Tries to say a lot using it's black/absurdist comedy, but largely falls flat due to poor delivery, horrendous pacing, and unclear plotting. It obviously tries to say a lot but it's message is left murky. A lot of odd tonal shifts and some near Pythonesque caricatures of war films make me wonder what the film is trying to be. Too long, too boring, and too dark when it needs to be lighthearted, and too silly when it needs to get serious. Good concept, bad execution.

Richard Lester does love his chaos.

Difficult to understand and has a fairly inaccessible message, but once you get it you can appreciate the idea. I can't say that I enjoyed any of the jokes. Actually, I'm fairly sure that none of them made any sense. It ends up being an extremely wacky/zany, but equally ineffective anti-war movie.