Great, yet not so great

Rating: 6/10 (20 August 2009)

Let me say first that I own the DVD so that says a lot about the film. I don't buy movies indiscriminately just because I recognize the title. This is a fine piece of entertainment and Robin Williams was probably never better in his role' as Adrian Croenaur. The casting is uniformly excellent with kudos going to the sadly departed Bruno Kirby as Lt. Steven Hauk and J.K. Walsh as Sgt. Maj. Dickerson.
I've worked for many years in radio and the one issue which grates on me personally was how incredibly sloppily the actual scenes of Williams were handled while he was doing his broadcasts. I suppose Barry Levinson didn't think that it would matter to accurately depict a radio control room (or hoped no one would notice - but I did). Like: at no point in the film were the level meters indicating the sounds heard on the soundtrack. Yeah, they were moving, but not in synch with the sounds supposedly playing through the control board! There was one scene with a clear close-up of a tape recorder which was NOT running, yet the meters were merrily bouncing as if it was playing. Come ON, Barry!
All that said, I am willing and able to look past that to see a great film with a great script and a great story. Do I recommend it? Sure!