Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

... he would be Robin William's portrayal of D.J. Adrian Cronauer in this film. This ended Robin William's long period of exile in purely comedic, and quite frankly, silly films that started back in 1980 with Popeye. His career up to this point paralleled Steve Martin's in many ways, because his past career as a stand-up comic - and let's face it Mork and Mindy just had him basically doing stand-up on the four year run of that TV show - had pigeon-holed him into doing films like "The Survivors" and "The Best of Times" where he was doing straight comedy with mediocre scripts.This role was tailor made for Williams, because when he does his thing as the morning DJ, it is his own impromptu brash brand of fast talking comedy that made him famous. I hear that the director just gave Robin an outline of what was going on and let him rip. Nobody is safe - not then ex-Veep Nixon, not Walter Cronkite, not LBJ's daughters. Plus there is a great soundtrack of the best of sixties music. So much so that they wind up playing a song that wasn't even written in 1965 - "You Just Keep Me Hanging On". To play against Willams' character is Bruno Kirby as Lt. Steven Hauk who is not evil, he is just as square as he can be with no appreciation of Cronauer's humor or taste in music. I think we've all had bosses like this guy. For evil you have to go to J.T. Walsh as Sgt. Major Dickinson, who threatens and actually seems like he would enjoy sending Cronauer to his death in the jungles of Nam.Robin Williams gets to do some serious acting when he runs into the extreme censorship of the news that is done by the army - he doesn't get to report anything that isn't completely positive. And, up close and personal, he runs into the fact that "the enemy" includes the Vietnamese themselves, who are not so much hot on Communism as they are cold to the idea of being occupied by the Americans as they had been occupied by the French before.I can't tell you anymore than this without giving something away. Just realize that this film is not a complete laughfest - there is some serious stuff going on here too - and that is why it was perfect for Robin Williams' transition to serious roles. Highly recommended.

Let me begin with the fact that I believe that this is a good movie. The soundtrack is fitting, the cinematography is generally well done, and the script, for the most part, is believable and well thought out. There are, however, some issues that take me out of my immersion in the movie. For example, the speech given by Tuan at the end of the movie was cheesy and forced. This is where I see that the movie understands what it is. The movie points out the needless presence of the military in Vietnam and that's the point of the move. Between the constant censorship and the multiple references to the distrust between the Americans and Vietnamese, the movie plainly shows the message that the Vietnam war was pointless and hurt relations with Vietnam. This does set up one great scene that I feel was the best in the movie. The montage of Tuan's friends getting captured and shot while Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonder World" was a beautifully shot scene that perfectly summed up what the director wanted to show.

Robin Williams stars as Adrian Cronauer, an Air Force Dee-jay who has been brought to Vietnam to be on the airwaves there, ostensibly because he was funny when he was a Dee-jay in Crete. There is a real Adrian Cronauer, and this story is based on him, but the marketers never advertise this as based on a true story, so you know this must be mostly Hollywood at work.Cronauer's style is unique, wild, wacky, crazy, with tons of voice impressions and just off-the-wall stories and personalities streaming out of the head of Williams/Cronhauer into the ears of the troops. It's a huge departure from the typically monotone, boring, and heavily censored radio entertainment, and the troops love it!Forrest Whitaker also stars as Ed Garlick, a fellow radio Dee-jay and kind of the mentor to Cronauer. Once Cronauer gets settled, the story centers around two themes: 1\ his battle against the uptight stations owners, played beautifully by J.T. Walsh (See Breakdown - great bad guy) as the Sgt Major and Bruno Kirby as Lt. Haulk who desperately wants to be funny, and believes he is, but no, he's just not. And 2\ his attraction to a young Vietnamese woman he sees passing on the street, Trinh (played by Chintara Sukapatana who went on to become an actress with some credits). Cronauer develops a friendship with Trinh's brother Tranh, and Cronauer slowly realizes that the cultural division between him and Tranh is wide and probably insurmountable. Barry Levinson directs this masterpiece, with excellent taut movement from scene to scene - not much wasted moments here. See Rainman and The Natural from some of his other gems.In the end, what happens is pretty much what you might expect, but it doesn't make it less heartfelt an emotional pull for the viewer. I wouldn't describe this as an anti-war film, but more so, as a film that encourages you to question the status quo as you go through life, which is certainly what Cronauer did, in spades. Enjoy this fine film!

This movie is based on the true story of an US Air Force man transferred from Crete to Vietnam in 1965 to be the new DJ of the US Army radio station, and when he goes on the air for the first time, he refuses to follow the dull format of the previous DJ or play the dull music that had been played. In the movie, the new DJ is in fact encouraged by his fellow enlisted soldiers to play contemporary pop music from Motown and The Beach Boys and engage in rapid-fire comedy patter. Various military people all laugh at the new DJ's verbal antics, but as might be expected, the military higher-ups are not pleased with the new DJ's irreverent program.A good potential idea, but poorly utilized. Robin Williams' routine was reportedly ad-libbed, but his comedy routine failed to be funny. The soldiers are all shown laughing, but one gets the idea that they do so because that is what they were hired to do. Rapid-fire comedy and silly verbal antics can be hilarious, but Williams was simply dull and boring, as if he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do. I didn't bother to finish the film; what I saw of it shouted that it was going to be standard and clichéd, and what good is it to watch a comedian who is not funny?I wonder what the real-life DJ was like. He certainly must have been funnier.