"GOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAM!!!"
Damn that was funny. I regret not having seen this earlier, as I'm a big fan (much of the time) of Robin Williams and had this recommended to me years ago. Possibly my favourite Williams movie, and that's saying quite a lot. He plays a fast talking comedian DJ who's been dumped in Vietnam just as that war that there are tons of movies about is starting to heat up. It's a true underdog story - both 'Good Morning, Vietnam' and the Vietnam-American war.
He's got that classic insecurity thing going on that seems to afflict anyone trying to be funny (erm) and so rattles off jokes to just about anyone that he comes into contact with. This gets him in trouble repeatedly, but also makes him a lot of friends. As the movie chugs along he begins to mature as he sees the seriousness of everyone dying around him and whatnot, and by the end he's contemplatively silent for minutes at a time, without loosing his good nature.
So it's a movie about growing up, really. When a bomb goes off right at his local pub its a bit of a slap in the face from reality, and then the images of the dead and dying combine with those of the news type writers writing up the event, showing that what they're putting out is really happening to real people. This is where he starts going against orders for a reason. Where before, he was just making mildly offensive jokes (though comedy isn't comedy if there are any lines that can't be crossed, as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise it would almost be like it was taking itself seriously - imagine. Oh and comedy awards are ridiculous too, for the same reason) and doing impressions, now he's reporting on news that's now allowed. And making jokes.
The following scene was excellent, and as Adrian (Williams) is cut off the room falls into silence save the crazed tapping of the type writers as the camera slowly pans out through the glass wall into the com room. Speaking of 'com', wasn't Lt. Hauk great? With his abbreviations and his crap comedy and all.
"Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we
keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end
up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P."
He helps the film feel light and upbeat, even while dealing with serious issues. A viewer could watch 'Good Morning, Vietnam' and come out of it thinking it was anything between a dumb comedy akin to 'Police Academy', or a more serious story with some comedy flavouring sprinkled over it. In fact, the rest of the cast were all fantastic, and they all added such strong characters to a movie already underlined by the big heavy base of Robin Williams that I'd have expected it to be over-hammed. It's a bit like a mac and cheese pie (yes, we have those here - come to Scotland! If you were wondering why England is so flat and so crowded, it's because all the fat Scottish people can't help but roll down the "mountains" here into England. Soon there either won't be anyone left here, or Scotland will be flattened until it becomes as boring as our closest neighbor). Really heavy on the starch, but somehow still tasty. You don't feel guilty after watching this movie though - unless you're American, but I doubt that, and you're taught a neat lesson about growing through failure and thinking of others along the way.
Without a doubt some of the best bits are his monologues on air. He just talks to himself for minutes at a time, doing different voices and junk, and it's hilarious. They're dispersed throughout the movie, and have me grinning every time:
"Hey, uh, hi. Can you help me?' 'What's your name?' 'My name's Roosevelt E.
Roosevelt.' 'Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?' 'I'm stationed
in Poontang.' 'Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What's the weather like out
there?' 'It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things is my shorts. I
could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.' 'Well, can you
tell me what it feels like?' 'Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you
born on the sun? It's damn hot! I saw - It's so damn hot, I saw little
guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know
what I'm talking about?' 'What do you think it's going to be like
tonight?' 'It's gonna be HOT and WET! That's nice if you're with a LADY,
but it ain't no good if you're in the JUNGLE.' 'Thank you, Roosevelt."
I also loved the scene where he was entertaining a few truck loads of soldiers who were stuck in the road. nothing sad was said - it was all jokes - but we can see the hurt is his eyes as he waves goodbye to the soldiers. he knows that soon many could be dead. Then 'what a wonderful world' plays as bombs fall and civilians are executed in a beautiful montage, and I say "aw man" and sit upside-down for a while to take my mind off it. The romantic elements fell a little flat for me - partly because of her somewhat wooden acting - but I liked the unhappy conclusion. I also liked the conclusion of her brother and him. I think the brother story line could have stood alone, as they were both aspects of the same lesson for Adrian, but the romance doesn't take anything from the movie, rather it fails to bring a whole lot.
"The Mississippi River broke through a protective dike today. What is a
protective dike? Is it a large woman that says "Don't go near there! But
Betty- Don't go near there! Don't go down by the river!"... No, we
can't say "dyke" on the air, we can't even say "lesbian" anymore, it's
"women in comfortable shoes. Thank You."
This is a great one though, and I'd definitely recommend it. It generally feels a whole lot lighter than I've let on here, as some of the more serious stuff stays under the surface for much of the movie. Ebert did an excellent review of it, which I'd also read if I were you (says what I'm trying to better, and doesn't go off on ranty tangents. Speaking of ranty tangents, if I were to go off on a ranty tangent about shanty town it would be a ranty shanty tangent).
(Doing Cronkite) "I just want to begin by saying to Roosevelt E. Roosevelt, what it is,
what it shall be, what it was. The weather out there today is hot and
shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance
of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the
north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut."
Basically, bad things happen to you repeatedly but you learn from them. Kind of like if you hit a child it won't start fires or something. That's nice, right? We're all growing as people, growing on a framework of emotional scars (that sounded good, might use that for proper writing). I'm honestly not trying to be a downer here, it's a sort of nice/reassuring message really, and it's definitely something to feel good about. As Jez from 'Peep Show' is wont to say; "it's all basically fine".
Good Morning, Vietnam: 81.2