What can one say about this movie, which wrapped up one of the longest running television series in history? Admittedly it was much darker than most of the episodes were, but Alan Alda did it all in this finale: wrote, directed, and starred in a powerful and fitting finale to this immortal show.
In case there are still people out there who are yet to see it, I refuse to give anything about the movie away, save for the fact that Alda's performance as Hawkeye in the first half of the movie is absolutely brilliant, as he takes the character in a direction seldom, if ever, seen in the series.
While there are still laughs in this finale, the laugh track is conspicuously absent, as the focus here is more on the characters and their reaction to the end of the war and the breakup of the 4077th MASH family and a focus on the issue that's been sublime in the series since 1972: War is Hell. We see it as Major Winchester, who has tried every trick in the book to shut out the war around him, finally has it broken through his defensive wall. The goodbyes at the end of the film, between Hawkeye, BJ, and Colonel Potter, and between Hawkeye and BJ, followed by the last, slower (almost haunting) playing of the MASH theme as a chopper flies Hawkeye away from the 4077th forever, provide a befitting swansong to the greatest television show ever. No show will ever outperform MASH. Ever.