In the early winter of 1968, Chicky Donahue, a 26-year-old civilian, arrived in Vietnam with a Brewski duffel bag and an errand that could reasonably be called an absurd, condescending and suicidal act. . “Best Beer Run Ever” Donahue (Zac Efron) hands beer to his four war-fighting buddies by a drinking buddy back at his home in Inwood, then a working-class Irish neighborhood in Manhattan. I dared to try. “Fluffy thank you card!” Donahue exclaims happily to her own Moxie. His farcical mandate is mostly true, Oscar-winning Peter for “Green Book” he is an audience-pleaser about the cowardly enlightenment that intoxicates director Farrelly.
Farrelly and his co-authors Brian Curry and Pete Jones see national identity reflected in Donahue’s patriotic and irrational rationale for his quest. To this lazy slacker, his ferocious companions, and their frenzied saloon master Colonel (Bill Murray, barely visible under his crusty flattop), the domestic ale pull-tab tells us that America Support the military by reminding the overseas fighters that they reign supreme. The movie starts like a Super Bowl commercial and ends like a hangover.
As Donohue sails to Saigon, public opinion favors the conflict, and Efron hitchhikes to the front, embodying it with a smile on his face like a shield. (One soldier groans, “Sometimes you come across a guy who is too stupid to be killed. A war that includes him. After all, if a dingbat like him can fend off an officer and get to the battlefield, things cannot be controlled.
The script is based on Donahue’s memoir of the same name (co-authored with JT Molloy) and captures his bravery. (“He was a four-star general when it came to stoning his BS,” he writes.) The film makes his on-screen portrayal more forgettable, but the U.S. tanks make it that way. It supports his claim that he saw a hole in the wall. Just blame your own embassy, later Viet Cong explosion.
A local traffic cop (Kevin K. Tran) and a no-nonsense photojournalist (Russell Crowe with his surly, rolled-up sleeves cynicism) are an amalgamation of the many who stepped in to save Donahue’s neck. . To increase tension as well as extend sympathy to the Vietnamese villagers, Farrelly also concocts a scene in which Donahue is forced to hide in the jungle from him. Homelander.
Several horrors embellish from this book, especially those that inspired cinematographer Sean Porter to shoot in dramatic slow motion: a herd of napalm bombed elephants, a prisoner falling headlong out of a helicopter. , wounded soldiers lit by flames, etc. Otherwise, the film’s style is as stubbornly chipper as its subject matter (although there’s a great psychedelic-rock soundtrack that draws from lesser-known acts like The Electric Prunes). The depth comes from Efron’s visible difficulty maintaining a smile. Only after crossing the ocean does he find that he has discovered a permanent rift between him and his childhood friend.
Best beer run ever
Rated R for language and violence. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. at the theater.