One Of Robin Williams' Best

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2014)

I find Robin Williams frustrating as an actor. He can be both very funny and he can pull off dramatic roles well. For such a versatile actor, though, he often ends up taking the parts he plays a little too over the top and can sometimes distract from the story. "Good Morning, Vietnam" was a very good performance by Williams, though, which allowed him to display both his comedic and dramatic talents.
Williams played military DJ Adrian Cronauer, who hosted an Armed Forces Radio show out of Saigon in the mid 1960's during the Vietnam War. Cronauer was an innovative DJ, trying to make military radio sound more like civilian radio back home. The military, however, is very steeped in tradition, and Cronauer's efforts weren't universally appreciated by the military brass, with whom he often butted heads.
Williams did a good job as Cronauer the DJ. In fact, you could say that he was tailor made for the part. Having said that, the real life Cronauer acknowledges that he wasn't as over the top as Williams portrayed him. So the movie isn't a biography; it was made for entertainment purposes. I suspect that much of the dramatic content of the movie was fictional. It revolved around a Vietnamese woman who became Cronauer's love interest and her brother, who became Cronauer's best friend until he was discovered to have been a Viet Cong member.
This is, perhaps surprisingly, a reflective movie at times, giving the opportunity for the viewer to think about the Vietnam War through a number of scenes. It's definitely one of Robin Williams' best performances, and he's supported by actors such as J.T. Walsh and Forest Whittaker. (7/10)