Plot: An eccentric radio DJ gets stationed
in Vietnam during the war and clashes with his superiors.
Review: Robin Williams has both the
ability to be the funniest man alive as well as the most annoying. How you feel
about him in a certain role will dictate how you feel about the movie. In Good Morning, Vietnam Williams is a
loud, eccentric DJ who does imitations and talks really fast. Now some of his
jokes landed and were pretty funny, but most of them kind of felt like the
droning on of a crazy person. Now this of course is a subjective opinion and
some may love this aspect of him, but I thought he was just going too crazy, all
over the place and just throwing everything at the wall and hoping something
sticks.
The movie wants us
to sympathize with Williams character Adrian Cronauer as he constantly clashes
with his superior Sgt. Major Dickerson (J.T.Walsh). However, Major Dickerson
might be a jerk who doesn’t want any silliness in his unit, but the only times
he actually disciplines or talks down to Cronauer are warranted instances where
he gets into bar fights or other kind of trouble. After a few of these infractions,
you start siding with the Major.
There is also a
very bizarre love story between Adrian and a young Vietnamese woman. He literally
just picks her randomly in the street and now she is the love of his life and
he must have her. It appears very arbitrary, like they just needed to throw in
a love interest. Now I did find that it led to some of the funnier scenes of
the movie with Williams teaching English to a class of Vietnamese people which
was also quite endearing at times.
The supporting
cast has some fairly known names, including Forrest Whitaker, Robert Wuhl and
Bruno Kirby. They are all fine with what they are doing, Whitaker still in the
quiet, shy faze of his career and Kirby is providing laughs with his officer
that nobody respects. There’s also Noble Willimgham, who some of you may
recognize as the bad guy from The Last Boy Scout. Here he’s a lovable general
with a fantastic southern voice.
Of course in the
end you have to recognize that this is a war movie and bad things will happen.
There are some scenes of violence and brutality but they are not that blatant.
They show the cost of war without going into graphic details. There is a
subplot near the end regarding espionage that doesn’t really pan out to
anything but it does feel like a big deal at that moment.
Your level of
enjoyment of this movie will live and die based on how funny you find Robin
Williams in this role. He’s the centerpiece here and everything else is
dressing on the side. In my case, I did not find him particularly funny except
for a few instances, therefore I did not enjoy this movie all that much.
Score: 5/10
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