If Hawkeye was a DJ AND in the Vietnam War...

Rating: 10/10 (6 November 2016)

... he would be Robin William's portrayal of D.J. Adrian Cronauer in this film. This ended Robin William's long period of exile in purely comedic, and quite frankly, silly films that started back in 1980 with Popeye. His career up to this point paralleled Steve Martin's in many ways, because his past career as a stand-up comic - and let's face it Mork and Mindy just had him basically doing stand-up on the four year run of that TV show - had pigeon-holed him into doing films like "The Survivors" and "The Best of Times" where he was doing straight comedy with mediocre scripts.
This role was tailor made for Williams, because when he does his thing as the morning DJ, it is his own impromptu brash brand of fast talking comedy that made him famous. I hear that the director just gave Robin an outline of what was going on and let him rip. Nobody is safe - not then ex-Veep Nixon, not Walter Cronkite, not LBJ's daughters. Plus there is a great soundtrack of the best of sixties music. So much so that they wind up playing a song that wasn't even written in 1965 - "You Just Keep Me Hanging On". To play against Willams' character is Bruno Kirby as Lt. Steven Hauk who is not evil, he is just as square as he can be with no appreciation of Cronauer's humor or taste in music. I think we've all had bosses like this guy. For evil you have to go to J.T. Walsh as Sgt. Major Dickinson, who threatens and actually seems like he would enjoy sending Cronauer to his death in the jungles of Nam.
Robin Williams gets to do some serious acting when he runs into the extreme censorship of the news that is done by the army - he doesn't get to report anything that isn't completely positive. And, up close and personal, he runs into the fact that "the enemy" includes the Vietnamese themselves, who are not so much hot on Communism as they are cold to the idea of being occupied by the Americans as they had been occupied by the French before.
I can't tell you anymore than this without giving something away. Just realize that this film is not a complete laughfest - there is some serious stuff going on here too - and that is why it was perfect for Robin Williams' transition to serious roles. Highly recommended.