The (live-action) role Robin Williams was born to play...

Rating: 8/10 (13 July 2019)

"President Johnson says the situation in Vietnam will worsen before it improves"
This is the last item of news we catch while we follow Adrian Cronauer's departure from Nam. We've laughed a lot with his crazy and hilarious antics but Lyndon Johnson provided the final punchline to the worst possible joke in a movie full of them: war itself.
Calling war a joke is a cliché but it does seem that both humor and war (or politics) rely on absurdity, one taking the edge in the way it takes itself seriously. Whenever we read news about today's political leaders, aren't we all asking the same question after all: "are they serious?". A man said that the talent of a politician is to never answer the question, art is not to let them be asked, a comedian works differently: his talent is to ask the right questions, art is to pretend he doesn't even try. Comedians play, politicians dodge, that's the irreconcilable difference between the two worlds, intelligently explored in Barry Levinson comedy-drama "Good Morning, Vietnam" starring Robin Williams in the closest role to his real personality (and one of his best) as Radio Armed Services DJ Adrian Cronauer.
Even the catchphrase "Good Morning, Vietnam" plays like a wake-up call to the troops, making Cronauer a sensation in 1965 and the target of a few petty officers disapproving his irreverent and raunchy humor. The film focuses on that internal battle with censorship a little more than the actual Vietnam war but to make an even more insightful statement about war, as if the script written by Mitch Markowitz illustrated that iconic statement from Clemenceau that war is too serious a matter to be left to military men. And maybe war is so tragic that extracting any humorous substance from it is the greatest tribute to the human spirit and Cronauer, the man who kept morals high in the infancy of the war with his puns, impressions and redundant "Good Morning, Vietnaaaaam" accomplished the closest thing to a heroic deed. He didn't save lives but saved them from boredom and alienation.
Some people are just born to tell jokes, we forgive them for offending sensitivities because they do it with 'style' and they're so funny they never make it sound like something mean. And the movie draws that line between fun and mean-spiritedness from the way the troops and everyone around Cronauer reacts to his jokes, sometimes, his popularity is overplayed but Robin Williams is such a presence that he gives an extra aura of sympathy to Cronauer. In contrast, there's butt-monkey Lieutenant Hauk (Bruno Kirby) who doesn't get his vulgarity (he'd rather put Polka than Rock'n'Roll) and the fittingly called Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) who doesn't see from in a favorable light this man coming to stir anarchy, forgetting that even in WW2 vets had Tex Avery cartoons, Private Snafu's adventures and other stuff moral would usually reprimand.
The film is full of fine supporting performances, including Cronauer's assistant Edward Garlick (Forest Whitaker in his young nerdy years coming back from "Platoon"), General Taylor (Noble Willingham) a comprehensive man who sees as a priority that his boys have a good time and is perhaps Cronauer's number one fan. And the film proves he's got a good taste, offering the most latitude for Robin Williams to showcase his talent with all the flamboyance and instinct for improvisation he's capable of: a pacing problem with a record, a reference to "The Wizard of Oz", anything leads to humor. This is certainly his greatest role with "Aladdin in the sense that it encapsulates all his talent and energy without distracting from the mood of the film, he makes us laugh first so we can appreciate the serious moments.
And as viewers, we're more interested to see complexities behind that jovial facade, and see how eventually humor was like a self-defense to cover some deep insecurities. And even that would have been too predictable, the film starts with a man everyone likes immediately but who doesn't have enough perspective on himself. He's slightly cynical, turns everything into a joke, and somewhat we never know what matters to him, he might be as "annoying" (for lack of a better word) as Robin Williams could be during interviews. Progressively, the film unveils his depths, he has a crush on a Vietnamese girl (Chintara Sukapatana), learns to get along with her brother (Tung Thanh Tran), he teaches Vietnamese people the American slang, befriends a restaurant owner and slowly, the mundane gets over the professional and we start to see the war (and the comedian) from a different perspective, allowing us to appreciate the drama besides the comedy.
And the film features many montages mixing music of the era and the war as a backdrop, switching between the fun with Williams dancing to "I Feel Good", to the more famous "A Wonderful World" one of the film's most memorable moments. I'm not sure the film is always that effective when it states the obvious things such as war being hell or Cronauer good guy, but there's something so genuinely appealing in Williams' acting that we're able to see the sadness behind his smiles without ever feeling manipulated. Still, no matter how high Barry Levinson's "Good Morning, Vietnam" aimed in terms of hilarity, it reminds us at the end that humor takes its noblest meaning when it operates within an area that doesn't leave much for laughs; humor is like a dish served on a ugly plate.
And perhaps the comedians are men capable to see the worst in humanity before they conjure it with their fun and humor, and maybe the best comedians are deeply the saddest and yet the most capable to give us happiness, like Williams did, like Cronauer did... improving things a little before the situation worsened.