Movie Review – Ernest in the Army

Ernest in the Army (1998)
Written by John Cherry, Jeffrey Pillars, and Joseph Dattorre
Directed by John Cherry

Just less than two years after Ernest in the Army’s release direct-to-video, Jim Varney passed away from lung cancer at his home in White House, Tennessee. He recorded dialogue for Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire and played a small role in a Billy Bob Thornton film. His career as Ernest ended in a downturn. Varney consistently adhered to the transparency that they made these movies because they made money. There was never a faux sense of artistry. Varney also seemed to understand how important characters like Ernest were for kids. That makes the previous film, Ernest Goes to Africa, and this disappointment feels so out of place in the franchise.

Ernest (Jim Varney) is a golf ball collector at a shooting range in Georgia. He dreams of being a soldier…which seems odd when you’re in your late 40s. One of Ernest’s buddies tells him that if he joins the Army, they will let him drive large vehicles and that he’ll be safe from combat. This seems to be the thing that pushes Ernest to join up. That changes when the US Army is called in to assist the United Nations in protecting the fictional country of Karifistan from being invaded by the Islamic dictator Tufuti of Arizia. Ernest goes through a series of seemingly disconnected vignettes where he feels inconsequential to the movie’s actual plot.

This Ernest film bored me to tears, and that’s saying a lot. This movie is so excruciatingly dull & unfunny, especially when seen close to the earlier, better pictures. Ernest disappears for long swaths of the story as it focuses on the conflict, which is not compelling or well-written. Also, for a film with this title, you might have imagined we’d get a comedy about boot camp. Ernest could be paired with an uptight boot camp instructor. Opportunities for slapstick comedy abound with basic training. There’s already a relatively decent back catalog of films that dip their toes in this subject matter, so just steal the best bits. Nope.

Instead, we get this storyline about Islamic terrorists that takes itself way too seriously. There’s lots of pandering to military veterans that is so heavy-handed. There’s a ridiculous subplot where Ernest rescues an Arab child who narrates the film’s ending as an adult looking back, implying that he has grown up as a significant leader in the region. When you step back and take it all in, the nine films in this franchise, Ernest in the Army, feels so wildly off the rails. This could have been at least a fun “bad” movie to watch, but we can’t even get that. One can only imagine what this film would have been like if Varney had survived and it was made post-9/11.

Jim Varney passed away on 10 February 2000. It happened about a thirty-minute drive from my family home. I was in my sophomore year of college at a university in Nashville, going about my day. I don’t remember when I became aware that Varney had died, and I can’t remember how I felt about it. In rewatching these films, I certainly remember why I enjoyed the Touchstone-era ones. By reading The Importance of Being Ernest, a biography written by Varney’s nephew, I learned much about his life near the end. 

Varney seemed to have accepted that he was near the end and was entertaining family members who were stopping in to pay their respects. His nephew recalled his uncle chatting him up like any other visit. Varney loved collecting watches and knives and would always give them away as gifts. He didn’t just like collecting them but loved learning about them. Given the chance, Varney would share stories behind particular blades or the inner workings of a new watch acquisition. From his nephew’s account, Varney was a practitioner of Wicca, too. He never made it to Broadway. He made some movies that kids really loved. I still think Ernest Saves Christmas is an all-time great. But the end was messy and was more about money than making the kids laugh. 

We live in an era without weird guys like Pee-Wee or Ernest. Having those odd, silly dudes around was a good thing. They were far from hyper-masculine but were energetic, full of life, and exhibited absolute joy in being with people. I don’t imagine Ernest will last the test of time for the eons to come. If the chance arises, I won’t turn down a viewing of Saves Christmas or Scared Stupid. I hope Varney is at peace wherever he may be.