Review: Groundhog day

Groundhog day

Groundhog day is a 100 minute comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, it stars Billy Murray and focuses on a man who is forced to live the day over and over again.

Groundhog day was one of those old classics that I never got round to, always kept escaping me, something I decided to get round to correcting.
This is one example of a film I like to throw in with the decent pile, it’s never bad enough to be bad but it’s never good enough to do anything more than scraping close to being good.  
The humour delivers just enough and frequently to raise amusement but never has you roaring with laughter, made so by an equally workmans performance by Murray. The concept is high and thankfully avoids what I feared with things becoming too repetitive, it’s again just creative enough to get away with that and the short running time keeps it from overstaying its welcome.
It helps that Murray’s character earns his ending by the films conclusion also.
The film shows the cons/pros of the situation which is also welcome.
As it goes on, while it never slips so far to sink, it skates slightly near to schmaltz, moralistic, preachy, thankfully just about dodging that bullet. Skating towards I’ll use again for this film, also in relation to the bleak moments, they ALMOST strike a chord but fall just short. And while this’ll be one of those time loop stories I’ll give more of a pass to I’m still not sold, it still feels like a one horse/one track pony gimmick conceit to me.
The director was right to leave the cause of the loop up to the viewer and I guess it’s fair for me to interpret Murray’s character was being punished.
I went into Groundhog day with its reputation in mind, hoping it would be a great film, what I got was watchable, decent entertainment at least that needed a bit more bite to it.  

Verdict: ***