Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Directed by Barry Levinson

Film Review

It was the sitcom Mork & Mindy that made Robin Williams a national star in the late 1970s.  It wasn't until the late 1980s that he made it big in the movies, with a tailor-made part in Barry Levinson's Good Morning, Vietnam (1987).  In the interim, Williams had grown in stature to become one of the most highly rated stand-up comedians in America, and it is his flair for spontaneous lunatic comedy that is so ruthlessly exploited by Levinson in his film.  Williams was given free rein to improvise many of his comedy scenes in the film and the results are, as you might expect, deliriously funny.  But this isn't his most significant achievement.  The film gave Williams the chance to immerse himself in a complex character that isn't too far removed from his own.  Whether he was consciously giving us a glimpse of what lies beneath the comedy persona or whether he was being duped into doing so by his director, we shall never know.  What is certain is that the comic actor turns in an extraordinarily revealing character portrayal of a vulnerable man who uses comedy to insulate himself from the brutal realities of life.  It is hard to know where Robin Williams ends and Adrian Cronauer takes over.

Were it not for Williams' totally brilliant star turn Good Morning, Vietnam would be just a fairly average wartime comedy, a pretty half-hearted attempt to repeat the success of Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970) with the location shifted to the Vietnam War.  Despite some notable supporting performances (Bruno Kirby is hilarious as the psychotically humourless lieutenant with a deadly Polka fixation) the secondary characters are inadequately developed and barely register as more than bland caricatures.  With a genius gag merchant of Williams' standing at the wheel of the comedy juggernaut the humour is never in short supply, but once the film takes a sudden detour into dramatic/sentimental territory the credibility gap suddenly becomes noticeable.  The fault lies not with Williams - who proves himself to be a remarkably capable dramatic actor - but with the script which lacks depth and crowbars in an undesirable slab of Hollwood-style mawkishness into the proceedings.  The overly sentimental strains in Alex North's score only makes this unbearably apparent.

Even as late as the mid-1980s the Vietnam War was still a highly contentious topic, one which American film directors and writers were reluctant to tangle with.  The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979), the first films to accurately portray the horrors and insanity of the war, were highly controversial and garnered mixed reviews when they came out.  Good Morning, Vietnam was the first film to make light of the conflict and you can understand why its authors erred on the side of caution when it came to poking fun at this most unsuccessful and costly of military escapades.  A war that cost the lives of over four million people, including 58,000 American servicemen, is not something that naturally lends itself to comedy.  Today, almost thirty years on, the film's lack of satirical bite is mildly disappointing and it seems almost indecent that it should offer all but the flimsiest of critiques of America's involvement in Vietnam.  But should we be bothered by this?   For all its sins, Good Morning, Vietnam still manages to be uproariously funny - thanks to its prime asset, Robin Williams at the height of his comedic powers.

Film Synopsis

Saigon, 1965.  During the Vietnam War, American Airman Adrian Cronauer is seconded to work as a disc jockey for the Armed Forces Radio service.  Cronauer's mix of irreverent humour and trendy pop music proves highly popular with the servicemen who tune into him but brings him into conflict with his superiors.  Lieutenant Steven Hauk's attempt to oust Cronauer so that he can take his place and indulge his polka fetish backfires and the anarchic DJ is hastily reinstated.  Of duty, Cronauer encounters an attractive Vietnamese girl named Trinh and takes over an English class so that he can get to know her.  Trinh's younger brother Tuan tries to dissuade the DJ from pursuing his sister but the two quickly become friends.  When Cronauer's superiors discover that he has unintentionally befriended an active member of the Viet Cong his days as Vietnam's most popular DJ are numbered...