Good Morning, Vietnam

Good, if a little underwhelming.

Robin Williams (Adrian) is in strong form, while it's amusing to see a less experienced Forest Whitaker (Edward) in a rather dorky role. 'Good Morning, Vietnam' all makes for satisfactory viewing thanks to Mr. Williams' humour, even if I didn't have a great deal of interest in the plot et al.

An unseen side of the Vietnam War

Airman Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) is a DJ in Saigon, 1965. While Cronauer is a hit with the troops he incurs the wrath of his superiors for what they consider irreverent and subversive tendencies. When he's off the air, Cronauer pursues a cute Vietnamese woman (Chintara Sukapatana) while befriending her brother (Tung Thanh Tran). Forest Whitaker plays Cronauer's friend at the station while J.T. Walsh and Bruno Kirby play his nemeses.

Based on the real-life story, "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987) came out when Vietnam films were popular. While categorized as a war comedy, it's more of a war drama with amusing touches, mostly due to Williams' antics. It was a box office hit when released and hailed by critics. Roger Ebert, for instance, gave it a perfect rating. I didn't see it until a couple of nights ago, far removed from the hoopla of the period, and found it decent and somewhat amusing, but a tad overrated.

Nevertheless, there's an unexpected twist in the third act and the movie is a necessary companion-piece to movies like "Platoon" (1986) in that it provides the non-grunt, political side of the infamous conflict. For instance, the story takes place just before the troop levels were beefed up to 385,000 in 1966, which would escalate to 536,000 by 1968.

The film runs 2 hours, 1 minute, and was shot in Thailand.

GRADE: B-