Robin Williams Rocks the Airwaves!

Rating: 8/10 (20 September 2015)

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!