In the Army Now is a highly satirical 1994 war film, directed by Daniel Petrie, Jr. and starring Pauly Shore, Andy Dick, David Alan Grier, Esai Morales, and Lori Petty. The film earned $28,881,266 USD at the box office, making it the third highest grossing movie starring Pauly Shore (behind Encino Man and A Goofy Movie).

This film is not to be confused with the 1941 wartime comedy You're in the Army Now, starring Jimmy Durante, Phil Silvers, Jane Wyman, and Regis Toomey.

Synopsis

A group of young men and women joined the US Army Reserves believing they would have a good time while earning extra money. At first they were assigned to a Water Purifying Unit, thus earning the nickname of "waterboys". What they did not realize, though, was that the country of Libya was planning an invasion of Chad, and they would consequently be sent overseas. They first tried to get a discharge by pretending to be homosexuals, but they failed.

Upon arriving in Libya, they did not get along well with the full-time soldiers, particularly a Special Forces soldier played by Esai Morales. On a routine mission to resupply a forward base, their convoy was ambushed by a Libyan commando squad. The misfit reserves were thought to have been KIA and were left to fend for themselves. After a few days lost in the desert, they were captured by the Libyan forces and spent a night in a Libyan POW camp. There they met up with the Special Forces soldier and were told of his mission, to destroy mobile Scud missile launchers carrying missiles armed with biological warheads aimed at American bases in the region. During an airstrike, the group of reserves and the Special Forces soldier escaped and made contact with the American headquarters. The Reserves' first sergeant ordered them to finish off the Special Forces' mission and HALOed Fast Attack Vehicles and heavy weaponry to the reserves.

After locating the missiles, they had a difficult time holding off a battalion of Libyans while painting the missiles with a laser for an incoming airstrike which went off target, forcing the Reservists to destroy the missiles themselves using an AT4 anti-tank rocket launcher.

The waterboys return home as heroes, and at the end of the movie, they open up an electronics shop next to an army recruiting station.

Trivia

• The game that Pauly Shore's character is seen playing in the opening scene is Return Fire for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The version seen being played is custom built specifically for the movie. The stock version does not have a score counter and does not have infinite ammunition.

• The place the two main characters are seen playing miniature golf at was formerly known as the Malibu Castle located in Redondo Beach, CA. It was torn down in 2005.^{[citation needed]}

• Noted Chicago film critic Gary Richied has pointed out the substantial use of Dominican and Scientology theology in the moral choices of the main character, Bones.

• At a certain point in a film, Bones sarcastically states "I am the walrus, Paul is Dead". This a reference to the urban legend concerning Paul McCartney's supposed death and to the Beatles song, I Am the Walrus.

• After the first night in Chad, there is a scene in which the four are eating lunch in the barracks. At one point Brendan Fraser approaches the main four characters and instructs them not to eat the chicken because it tastes like frog. The name tag on his uniform says "Link" which was also his characters name in the film Encino Man in which he starred alongside Pauly Shore and his character bit a frog's head off in science class. Bones looks for a minute trying to see if he could recognize Link.

• The basic training scene was filmed at Fort Sill, located in Lawton, Oklahoma

External links

• In the Army Now at the Internet Movie Database
• In the Army Now at All Movie Guide

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