Major Payne

 

         Damon Wayne's was another one of those actors that I remember watching one of his films, Celtic Pride and I'm going to get to that film soon, oh don't you all worry. And Major Payne was a film that I've not seen and thought "oh this might be interesting and it's under ninety minutes, so let's give it a shot". Well, I could lie and say that this was funny but unfortunately this film was like Titanic, which had promise but was slowly sinking down to the bottom.

           Basically, Kindergarten Cop meets Rambo/Apocalypse Now, Major Payne (Damon Wayans) is discharged from the army and doesn't know how to cope with civilian life. Then he gets a second chance by going to a degraded military academy where he's literally teaching young kids, for which I would never in a million years have this guy teach kids anything about war, if it were me. 

           I believe my first introduction towards the film was a scene where they're making fun of Apocalypse Now, basically the scene where Martin Sheen is in his hotel room and having a mental breakdown and I thought okay great, there making fun of war movies like Apocalypse now and Full Metal Jacket maybe Major Payne will be a black version of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. No, basically the whole film is Wayans with a strange southern accent that gets way annoying and he's being a sort of mentor the these dysfunctional kids who also do childish pranks that go wrong because hell, I don't know this film really made me bewildered to the point where I couldn't find logic or even cared to find any logic. The film is actually based off of a 1955 film, The Private War of Major Benson staring Charlton Heston and literally caries the same plot as Major Payne has, and the good news is you can't find this movie anywhere not on the streaming services so, deep down I'm relieved because even looking at the movie poster I'm just glad to not even attempt to watch a family movie with Heston. I could probably go on and on about what ways to make this funny and avoid turning this into a typical family appropriate film, but deep down this film from the opening frame was having some potential to be good in all but then when the kids came involved then I suddenly realized that this, was going to be a disaster, so either way this film is a great example of the Titanic where it has potential to be a good movie but through the course of the film it was slowly sinking to the very bottom of the ocean, by the final frame. Now if you’re a fan of this movie or love Damon Wayans movies I guess go ahead and watch this movie since this film is on Hulu and Direct TV, but to me this film is like one of those films that are not as good as you'd remember. Like going to a high school reunion and it's at your High School and look at the school like a decaying school from a Simpsons episode (Season 6) and you want to leave as soon as you get a good look around the place. For which that's basically a great example of Major Payne. And now after watching Reefer Madness and Major Payne, I'm suddenly realizing that I'm failing to watch a dumb and entertaining movie to get my mind off watching Trainspotting though deep down I can never un-see the worst toilet in Scotland.