Greetings! (1968)

☆ ☆ ½

Greetings! (1968) – B. De Palma

It’s hard to know what to make of this early film from Brian De Palma – it’s sort of a cross between those Godard films where everyone just delivers monologues to the camera and those Warhol films where non-actors sit around and talk about or engage in trashy behaviour.  And it’s a comedy or filmed in a comic vein that is pretty easy-going and never really boring.  Three guys try to get out of going to Vietnam by flunking their draft physical, debate the Warren Commission results, engage in computer dates, and create films that peeping toms might love.  But mostly they just talk.  Some of their monologues are dirty and some are funny.  You feel like you are with a bunch of goof-offs who are pretty good at enjoying themselves.  One of the guys happens to be Robert De Niro (in his first film).  Allen Garfield has a good bit as a smut peddler.  But, yeah, De Palma seems to have been a pervert from the start.  Godard and Warhol may have had more to say.