Struggles to be important. (minor spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 2004)

Good Morning Vietnam is the Hollywood clean version of the Vietnam war. The movie is set in 1965, the first year of the declared war on Vietnam. However, we are looking at the 1980s white-washed version of the war and Vietnam itself during American occupation, which was typical to the decade in seeking to compensate for a war lost (also see Rambo).

1965 may've been the start of the declared war, but Vietnam was a country in military struggle for most of it's existence. Just having fought a war with the French, I doubt that even the South Vietnamese setting was so peaceful and pleasant (though economically ravaged) as this movie shows you. But unfortunately, I suppose it would have to, in order to draw your attention to the story--the battle of the airwaves.
Robin Williams plays Adrian Cronauer, an air force transferee who gets assigned to the local radio broadcasting station in Saigon. He is central to the movie's attempt at being defiant. But defiant against what? The war? Unruly authority? Given the way the story fluctuates and the various importance on several characters (not just Williams's character), it's hard to tell.
Cronauer's unusual broadcasting personality makes him popular against the soldiers in the field, but he is a thorn in the side of his superiors, Steven Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and Phillip Dickerson (JT Walsh) who prefer he stick to format. Cronauer is a hit with his monologues and rock n' roll hour. He's a pretty tough character, not caring much about the threats from Hauk and Dickerson, knowing that he's doing something good for the soldiers at least, who seem to enjoy it. He tests the waters with his commanding officers, however, when he tries to read the censored news bulletins on aired, hoping to remove the illusion of a "happy" war. But, even here, it doesn't seem like Cronauer is much of a character that stands out as a defiant one, and it looks like his actions had absolutely no effect on the soldier or anything like that (at least as far as the movie shows you). So where they were going with this aspect of the plot is pretty unclear (or perhaps, unfinished).
This is typical Robin Williams comedy, let loose for quite a few minutes at a time to splurge on semi-humorous monologues (at least when he doesn't do his impersonations so fast that you can't discern what he's saying). It is funny at moments, but most of the jokes are pretty stupid. It is nothing exciting, nor particularly engaging (though he does have some funny dialogue when it comes from the script). The more interesting secondary characters such as Forrest Whitakker are hardly developed in any sort of interest at all, and probably would've been necessary anyway to get some direction for this damned story and from the central character.
This is not one movie that I really enjoyed with some exception, and I fail to see what the big fuss is about it after all these years.