Peter Farrelly’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever stars Zac Efron as John Donohue, who’s known to his friends as Chickie. The year is 1967, and the Vietnam War is in full spate. Chickie is with the United States Merchant Marine, meaning that, when on land, he’s at liberty to booze into the night, snooze into the day, and cheer the progress of the troops on television. Only the reports that come through the TV at the local bar don’t exactly tell of progress, and the press, apparently, is to blame. “Bringing dead soldiers, guys with no arms and legs, into our living rooms is not helping no one,” says the bar’s owner, whom everyone calls The Colonel. “If they had showed the battle of the bulge on TV, we’d have quit after three days.”
The Colonel is played, with the aid of black-rimmed spectacles and a bristling silver flattop, by Bill Murray, and his presence primes you for comedy. So does the plot. Chickie decides to make his way into Vietnam, not to join battle with the Viet Cong but to supply his enlisted buddies with beer. The script, by Farrelly, Brian Currie, and Pete Jones, is based on the book of the same name, written by Donohue and J.T. Molloy. At the outset, we’re told that the film is “based on a true story,” but to what extent Farrelly, or indeed Chickie, have grabbed the truth and shaken it until it foams you’re never quite sure. Either way, the resultant spray is quite a ride.
With relative ease, Chickie hitches his way toward hell, first on a merchant ship bearing ammunition to Saigon, then on the backs of various jeeps and, in one unnerving sequence, in the belly of a chopper. At several points, military personnel take one look at him, in his cream chinos and short-sleeved shirts, and presume that he’s C.I.A.; after all, who would be crazy enough to stroll onto a military base and describe himself as a “tourist” at a time like this?
Throughout The Greatest Beer Run Ever, most of the laughs come from these blessed misunderstandings, and from the genial smile on Chickie’s face, as he bumbles ever deeper into trouble. “Every once in a while you run into a guy who’s too dumb to get killed,” one soldier says, watching as Chickie scrambles to cram loose beers back into his duffel bag.
Efron is perfect for this role, as there’s something unreachable about the actor. You may doubt that the real Donohue could have been quite so blithe in the face of such fevered bloodshed, but somehow his mission coheres in Efron. As the character visits each of his friends from back home, you feel them lightening, however briefly, in his company. Watch as he departs one of them in a helicopter, tossing a beer to the man below, who raises a sloshing toast into the downdraft. Each of them is drunk on Chickie, happy to forget themselves for just a moment.
The trouble with The Greatest Beer Run Ever is when it decides to sober up, and the comedy lurches into awkward attempts at melancholy. Efron struggles to meet the gravity of his surroundings, whether in a besieged Saigon, with fire in the streets, or a battlefield of damp greenery. When he falls in with Arthur Coates, a war reporter, played by a salty-haired Russell Crowe, you can feel the film losing its grip and growing restless. Over drinks, Coates gives a speech about politicians dealing in the currency of lies, saying, “The truth doesn’t hurt us.” A noble sentiment, undercut slightly by the pained look on Efron’s face, which gives the impression that the truth had just reversed over his foot.
Chickie’s realizations—that the war is hardly as worthy, clear-cut, and winnable as people are being told—are meant to herald the national hangover, which descended at the close of the ’60s and saw Americans becoming disillusioned. But The Greatest Beer Run Ever is at its best early on, buoyed by Chickie’s unbelievable exploits. The truth hurts it.
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Your written style is lovely and I enjoyed your review but I do not agree with it, Mr. Wise. I lived through the Viet Nam war and was 11 at the time this movie was set. This movie perfectly captured the disconnect between the public and the American military establishment at the time. That disconnect and innocence lost was slowly and painfully made clearer and clearer until the last beer reached Bobby Pappas after he was injured. No payment or reward can ever make up for what we did to those soldiers, nor can it be made up to the Vietnamese civilians, and so on. It was a wonderful, terrible, funny, sad movie. I will watch it again. Again, Mr. Wise, I lovve your writing style, but I just don’t think you lived in those times therefore cannot imagine them. The movie was spot on. God bless.