Review of Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) by Viet Phuong N — 12 Aug 2014

What an irony, the most beautiful "Vietnamese" character I have ever watched turns out to be a Thai actress (and she was not even good in her role with her very poor Vietnamese, but boys, how beautiful she is [was]).

This film reminds me of "MASH", another (a little bit) anti-war black comedy about the Vietnam War, but "MASH" is a much finer mixture of the comedic and the tragic flavours while "Good Morning, Vietnam" had a lot of potential but seemingly lost in finding a balance between depicting how the light-hearted and funny Cronauer found out the real nature of the Vietnam War and the cruel meaninglessness of the Vietnam War (or in fact any war that the American Army involves, since the "Vietnam" factor in this film, despite its seemingly distinctive and authentic look, only served as a generic and soulless setting for the development of the "American" characters).

Of course the late Robin Williams, true to the tons of praises upon his character in this film, shined through and through with his character - a dilemma of innocent vs. cynical, funny vs. depressed, uplifting vs.

hopeless, just as the contrast between his radio show in the cabin and the devastating war out there. His comedic tricks seems to be a somehow "dated" today (and thus, bored me a little bit) but his tragic "revelation" and everything in between were simply terrific, especially the sequence when he talked "live" with the young soldiers on their way to Nha Trang (a "paradise on earth" in Vietnam but also a symbol of the "VC Hell" as underlined in this film) - a sequence reminded me a lot of his mentoring role in "Dead Poets Society".

The way he showed his funny nature to encourage the soldiers (to die, ironically enough) while trying to cover his utter sorrowfulness really reflected his struggle in real life fighting off depression while doing his best make people laugh, that is really tragic but also very deserving and noble when someone like him can make the whole world laugh while he himself cries inside.

.. (Still, such superb depiction of American characters in comparison with the lackluster focus on the Vietnamese characters - the main victims of the war, is disappointing to me, to tell the truth). Lastly, one cay say that this is the best film for one who wants to remember how brilliant Robin Williams was in making our life brighter.

So long, Mr. Cronauer...