Good Morning Vietnam
This is no doubt the film that enabled Robin Williams to break thru and become a major movie star, and every time we see him on the air, doing mostly ad-libbed material to entertain the US troops in Vietnam, the movie is truly on fire with rapid fire hilarity. Unfortunately, as soon as Williams is out of the radio station and wandering around the streets of Saigon having misadventures including teaching an English class and romancing a pretty Vietnamese girl, it’s not NEARLY as interesting, with one major exception: with some goading from the Forest Whitaker character, Cronauer is compelled to stand up and do some comedic material for a waiting convoy of US soldiers about to go into the jungle. The scene is hilarious yet touching, as Williams is funnier than at any other point in the film yet feels horrible that these young men that love him are going out to possibly be killed, clearly showing why Williams earned his Best Actor Oscar Nomination. However, the film itself as directed as Barry Levinson suffers from some serious pacing problems (and nearly comes to a full dead stop when Cronauer accompanies the girl to her village), and the “melon baseball” scene at the end seems to go on forever. In addition, even the radio station scenes start to repeat themselves (Cronauer says something outrageous on the air, then gets dressed down for it) and there’s also some plot hole issues (if the boy who rescued Williams and Whitaker was VC, how was he able to walk away after the chopper brought them back to Saigon?). As for the rest of the cast, Bruno Kirby and JT Walsh do a fine job of being assholes as Cronauer’s superiors, Robert Wuhl does his usual mugging but brings little else to the table, and Whitaker is given little to do with the material other than acting like he’s in awe of Cronauer’s comedy skills. In the end, an average Vietnam movie only elevated by Williams’ improv skills…
7/10