Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

It's been a while since I've seen Good Morning Vietnam but I was reminded of it with the untimely death of Bruno Kirby earlier this week of August 2006. While the film is clearly Robin William's vehicle, Kirby, playing 2nd Lt. Hauck, is the perfect comedic foil. Kirby plays the uptight Hauck, who can't wait to get his hands on the microphone, in way that brings many of the laughs and sets Robin Williams up for more. I continue to use his line "and if you doooooo..." when someone, e.g. my wife or children, do not seem to be listening to me intently enough. Kirby does this in a scene where he is giving instructions to his underlings, who are routinely ignoring him as they comment on things having nothing to do with his agenda. This is a great movie. Williams gives one of his best performances, and you already know how I feel about Bruno Kirby. Another newcomer in the cast is Forest Whitaker, who would later make his mark in The Crying Game and as the host of the update TV series "The Twilight Zone."

Fmovies: An unorthodox DJ begins to shake up things when he is assigned to the US Armed Services Radio station in Vietnam ; it is based on real life Adrian Cronauer . An impulsive new Disc Jockey named Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams), on whom story was based , is shipped from Crete to Vietnam to bring humor to Armed Forces Radio. The irreverent radio man turns the studio on its ear and becomes wildly popular with the soldiers , realizing uproarious monologues but runs afoul of the middle management (J.T. Walsh , Bruno Kirby ,Robert Wuhl) who think he isn't G.I. enough . D J brings rock 'n' roll to troops during that period when the Vietnam War matured from its origins into a full-blown war as he briefly ruled Saigon's Armed Forces Radio in 1965 . While Adrian is off the air accompanied by his aide-de-camp (Forest Whitaker) attempts to meet Vietnamese especially women , and results to have brushes with the actual war that never appears on the radio.

It's a stunning and absorbing story that is based on real events and historical deeds . The storyline tackles issues of ethics and morality and the horror war . The movie in spite of the passed time is still powerful and astounding. The film is a Robin Williams recital as he realizes a splendid portrayal of a frantic disc jockey as he plays , sings , stooges, tongue twister and pulls faces and grimaces . It's a farce with the master comic pretty amusing and with several wonderful songs from the 60s . Robin copped a first rate acting , achieved a lot of success and a well-earned nomination for best main actor . Williams' improvisational manic monologues are the spotlights and carry the film in an interesting story which meanders too much . Ideal main cast is completed by phenomenal secondary actors as J.T. Walsh , Robert Wuhl, Noble Willingham and also shines Bruno Kirby as jealous superior. Marvelous musical score by the classic Alex North -Cleopatra,Spartacus- , including relevant musical interludes . Coloristic cinematography by Peter Sova , the outdoors filmed in Thailand are spellbound and breathtaking . The motion picture is compellingly directed by Barry Levinson -Sleepers, Bugsy, Avalon- .

This is a highly amusing and frequently funny War/drama/comedy romp with a witty script specifically aimed an adult audience . Picture is a vehicle Robin Williams , he's the whole show , he's an outrageous comic and real Farceur. If you like Robin's crazy interpretation , you will most definitely enjoy this one . Well worth watching for enjoyable performances from main cast as well as the warfare buffs who also will like it . Rating : Very good , worthwhile watching and better than average .

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM / (1987) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

Robin Williams is about as good as they come at doing stand up comedy, and in "Good Morning, Vietnam" director Berry Levinson gives him everything he needs to make the film go above and beyond the average satire. From his outgoing sense of humor, to his aggressive personality, and dozens of vocal effects, he portrays his character with interactive zest. Who can resist the awakening voice of Williams on the radio yelling "Good Morning Vietnam." This is a film that conquers the test of time.

"Good Morning, Vietnam" tells the story of a lively disc jockey who gets a job on Armed Forced Radio during the Vietnam War. Robin Williams is the fast-talking Adrian Cronauer, and who better to play the part than he. Although this character is one-dimensional (we are never informed on his background, marital status, where he comes from, what he did before we meet), as the movie continues he gradually begins to change into a deeper, more meaningful person.

The story moves along smoothly; the narrative through-line is consistent as each scene relates to the next. Although little momentum or suspense can be noticed, the film does have several underlining themes, often viewed upon in a Stanley Kubrick style: sarcastic and uncompromising. We see how much a little humor and jazz can greatly enlighten the hard-core atmosphere of the military during Vietnam, and how it can thoroughly confuse the bleeding heart officials.

The film hangs by the skin of its teeth for active conflict tension. Beyond people objecting to the actions of Williams' character, there is just not a lot of tension within the story, and at some points my interest wandered. "Good Morning, Vietnam" is merely a portrait of Robin Williams releasing his perennial comedy, and unfortunately that does happen to get old quite quickly; the majority of an audience can only watch the humor for so long until it becomes old and somewhat stale.

"Good Morning, Vietnam" is definitely not a flawless film, but we do empathize for the main character, the scenes effectively capture the attitude and mood during the war, and the dialogue and writing feel accurate and involving. Barry Levinson has directed a marvelous comedy, one that is not all about making us laugh, but also makes us think.

Good Morning, Vietnam fmovies. Made at a time when films on the Vietnam war were being produced by America at a healthy rate, Good Morning, Vietnam comes across as the sort that falls into both 'types' that were being produced at the time. Platoon got under the skin of Vietnam, telling the events from an individual's perspective through voiceovers without relying on a lot of causality, rather the everyday tasks and events that occur. Full Metal Jacket was an interesting beast in the sense most of its more intense scenes didn't actually happen in Vietnam but rather at home on the training ground. But both were in a sensible tradition and took attention away from the Reaganism inspired 'action' films that were Rambo: First Blood Part II and the like.

Good Morning, Vietnam falls into both these sorts of Vietnam war films. On one hand it is a serious film about the war and deals with serious issues such as morale and how dangerous conflict with the enemy actually is without doing what Rambo did by turning the war genre into a sub-division of the action genre. At one point in the film, DJ and lead character of the film Adrian Cronauer (Williams) finds himself in a hostile area out in the jungle and you do feel the shift in atmosphere the film briefly moves into in the sense this guy is not a soldier but he is in a dangerous position and he isn't equipped with how to get through it. There is another scene in which a street side bomb goes off and Adrian is caught up in the middle of it, further reminding us of the war zone and cleverly shifting the aura.

But the film does fall into the genre of comedy and while it does so, it never distracts us from the fact this is taking place during a war unlike First Blood: Part II which could really have been an action film set amongst any backdrop. Good Morning, Vietnam does not ignore its comedy roots either and gives us genuinely entertaining disc jockey rants from Williams who shines with his animation and ad-libbing, further reminding us of a later film of his, Aladdin, and how he really was the star of that piece.

The best parts of Good Morning, Vietnam actually raise issues to do with oppositional reading. As a character, Adrian is one of those charismatic individuals who is perhaps more focused on entertaining his audience first but when repercussions to do with that want to entertain arise, it is an oppositional reading to something that seems innocent enough. There are a couple of scenes and incidences that deal with this theme of oppositional reading. One that springs to mind takes place in a bar in which Adrian has brought a Vietnamese friend whom he teaches in an English class. The trouble is, it's a G.I. bar and certain soldiers have an issue with the Vietnamese person being there. It is Adrian's carefree and relaxed attitude to letting the individual come with him to the bar that has upset certain others around him, resulting in an oppositional opinion on whether the Vietnamese person should be allowed there. One says he can, others say he can't and conflict erupts.

This battle is constantly going on within the boundaries of the radio studio and exists between Adrian and the censors who blank out all the bad news such as deaths and bombings, failing to deliver the real news, and instead keep morale from going below a certain point. Adrian's style of giving the people what they should hear in a charismatic style also rubs off spawning a sub-story revolving around a small school that teaches Vietnamese people the English language. Before hand

"Good Morning, Vietnam" is truly Robin Williams at his best. As anarchic DJ Adrian Cronauer in 1965 Saigon, he makes sure that you never stop laughing. I really liked what he did with the tape of Richard Nixon's speech, and then his comment about the bombing of a restaurant. Most amazing is that he ad-libbed the whole thing (but hey, that's Robin Williams). Maybe Cronauer wasn't that wacky in real life, but every one of Williams' comments makes the movie worthwhile. The soundtrack even includes his monologues (you'll go crazy over the imitation of Lyndon Johnson, and the commentary from "Roosevelt E. Roosevelt"). A comedy classic in every sense.

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

A lighthearted but deadly serious anti-war film, actually. This is of course a Robin Williams movie so that it is his schtick, brilliant and inspired, that makes it soar. The best of it, including the famous riff when he first gets on the air as the new Saigon DJ, is hilarious and breathtaking. There is a plot, sort of, as he goes through a rise and fall at the military radio station, but it's more about his shining moments behind the microphone than anything else.

The "else" in this movie is, however, most of the movie. That is, Williams has a serious role as an offbeat renegade in a chaotic world surrounded by a range of sensible and very insensible officers and colleagues. At the most extreme, when we see a Vietnamese village firebombed while Louis Armstrong sings "It's a Wonderful World," the sentiment is so cloying it makes you cry, and you're not sure why because you know it's just over the top manipulation. Likewise when Williams is caught in a traffic jam with other military vehicles and he warms up the soldiers by humanizing everyone and making them feel like they really should be back home. Which they should be, as we know in retrospect.

So the movie has another side that's kind of sentimental and simplistic, whatever its good pacifist intentions. Williams is a decent actor—I'm not one of those who thinks he's brilliant outside of his funny roles—and so it holds up pretty well. But the plot line keeps the movie from really finding pathos, or comedy, or warmth, or tragedy of a dramatic kind, in the scenes outside the radio station. And I think that's what it intended.

For those who don't know, it's worth adding that the main character, Adrian Cronauer, was a real person, and still is—he's a staunch Republican (Williams was not, to be sure) and an innovator in radio in Vietnam. He also co-wrote the screenplay, I assume working on the scenes that he would know best rather than the larger saccharine plot aspects. A great story, and the real Cronauer deserves credit for inspiring it, and helping it along. He was, along with most of us, "Godsmacked" when he heard the news of Williams's death.