Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Great soundtrack? Check. Robin Williams being absolutely wild with his comedic DJ routines? Check. A standard battle of wills between the old and the new? Check. When I sat down for this long-overdue revisit of Good Morning, Vietnam, a film I believe I probably last watched on VHS, I thought I knew what I was getting. Because I still remembered it, the "highlights" anyway. Or so I thought. There was quite a bit here that I'd forgotten, and I'm here to now remind other people about some of those things.

Based on the story of Adrian Cronauer, a radio DJ who spent some time trying to raise the morale of the troops in Vietnam, this was one of only two films written by Mitch Markowitz, although some of his TV work feels like a good practice run for this kind of thing. You could also argue that a lot of the film was made up by an unleashed Williams, who Cronauer claimed made him seem a hell of a lot more fun than he was in reality, but let's give due credit to Markowitz for crafting something with a great balance of comedy, drama, and enough room for a supporting cast to move around without being thrown offscreen by the tornado tearing through many scenes.

When he is given his new job, Cronauer soon finds himself butting heads with Lt. Steven Hauk (who tries to advise him on both comedy and the permitted playlist) and Sgt. Major Dickerson (J. T. Walsh), but he also has some immediate firm friends in the shape of Edward Garlick (Forest Whitaker) and Marty Lee Dreiwitz (Robert Wuhl). When he falls for a local woman named Trinh (Chintara Sukapatan), Cronauer ends up teaching an English class just to try getting closer to her, which leads to him befriending her brother, Tuan (Tom T. Tran, credited here as Tung Thanh Tran), which leads to him getting himself in even more trouble.

Director Barry Levinson knows how to make the most of what he has here, and everything I mentioned in the opening paragraph is a strength for the film. The plotting is quite formulaic, but in an enjoyable way, Williams is on great form, and that soundtrack holds up as one of the best. There's enough scene-setting to remind everyone that we're in Vietnam, but it helps that there are only really a few main locations used throughout the majority of the runtime (the DJ area/military offices, a bar, the English class). There's also enough Williams to ensure that everyone knows this is a Williams movie, but the supporting cast are given some superb moments to help them stand out.

Whitaker is a real delight for every moment that he's onscreen, and he's the one helping to bring out the best in our lead while also reminding him of what he's really doing it all for, and Kirby, as unthinkable as it may seem, almost steals the entire movie with a comedic performance that is all the better for it not being played comedically (his character isn't funny, not intentionally, but he's constantly laughable). Sukapatan is fine, Tran is really good, and it's always a pleasure to watch Walsh onscreen, especially when he's delivering the kind of barely-controlled anger that he has here. Wuhl is good, Noble Willingham is enjoyable in his few scenes as the sympathetic Gen. Taylor, Richard Edson has the benefit of being onscreen alongside Kirby, adding to the comedy, and there's an amusingly camp turn from Cu Ba Nguyen as businessman/bar owner Jimmy Wah. I would not have believed that this was his first film acting role if I hadn't just quickly scanned through his filmography online.

Admittedly a bit tame compared to other films set during the Vietnam War, this is a nice way to shine a light on the whole debacle from a different angle. Making arbitrary rules and regulations about comedy and music is indicative of how arbitrary some (many?) of the military edicts are, especially during a conflict as chaotic and misjudged as the one in Vietnam. 

You'll probably revisit this one day while wanting to enjoy some classic Williams schtick, but you may be as pleasantly surprised as I was by all of the main supporting cast members, especially Whitaker and Kirby.

8/10

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Born On The Fourth Of July (1989)

As today is the fourth of July, kind of a big deal for many of my friends in the USA, I decided to finally check out, and review, Born On The Fourth Of July, a biographical drama co-written and directed by Oliver Stone, based on the experiences of a Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic (played here by Tom Cruise).

I doubt anyone who has seen an Oliver Stone movie will be surprised to hear that this is quite a simplistic tale (and anyone interested in this should remember that it is the middle part of a trilogy, consisting of Platoon, this movie, and Heaven & Earth). It starts with a young and idealistic Kovic getting himself enthusiastic about joining the military, eager to do his bit to ensure that his country wins out over an evil enemy, but that enthusiasm starts to wane as he experiences moments of confusion and horror while in battle, eventually being injured in a way that means he may eventually lose one, or both, of his legs. Once back in the USA, Ron's life doesn't get any better. He doesn't feel like the returning hero he envisioned, and his wheelchair-bound status seems to remind people of the human price being paid for a war that actually doesn't feel justified.

This is a Vietnam War movie, at least in part, so there's a decent selection of tunes scattered throughout the soundtrack, some fast and clumsy editing (some of it to help show war on a fairly small scale) as we zip through the main points of a life being shown in cinematic shorthand, and a script that spends a lot of time going around in circles as it keeps coming back to the main point being made. For all his faults, Stone certainly tries to show his passionate support for those watching to right historic wrongs, and he tries to cram so much into the 145-minute runtime that you end up willing him to do better during the few scenes that take more time to show the pain reverberating through the lives of some of the main characters (Kovic included, but he's far from the only one affected).

While I didn't expect this to be subtle, as familiar with Stone's filmography as I am, I did expect it to be good. I remember it being given a huge push when it was first released, a lot of the marketing being based around the fact that this was Tom Cruise taking a break from being Superstar Tom Cruise to show he could be Proper Actor Tom Cruise (which he'd already done successfully with his turn in Rain Man, in my opinion). It's arguably a great decision from Stone to cast him in the main role, considering the pro-military baggage that comes with the star of Top Gun, but it's outweighed by the fact that Cruise simply isn't good enough. While he has since delivered one or two outstanding performances in non-starry roles, I would argue that he wouldn't ever be good enough for this specific role. It's just not a good fit for his particular acting range, which is limited by his sheer Cruise-ness, and there are at least a dozen people who might have done better work here. The rest of the cast includes Kyra Sedgwick, Willem Dafoe, Tom Sizemore, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Josh Evans, Frank Whaley, and a few more familiar faces, but all of them are sadly underused.

Worth watching once, if only to ensure that this particular experience isn't forgotten, an experience I believe was shared by many who returned from that war. It's a shame that it's not better though. Other people needed to film this story, but this is what we ended up with. It's very disappointing.

Anyway, this is a reminder of the importance to celebrate your American freedom on the fourth of July. Well, unless you're non-white, LGBTQ+, women, students chained down by debt, averse to the idea of their lifestyle being overruled by religious beliefs, hoping to read books deemed offensive to some, drag queens that deliver wonderful story times, citizens mindful of curtailing and controlling police powers, people still incarcerated for smoking a joint under the three strikes rule you once had, etc, you get the idea. The battleground may be very different, and it's depressing to see it on "home turf", but the need for people to protest against being duped and mistreated by their government is just as strong.

4/10

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