Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! THIS IS ROBIN WILLIAMS HERE TO GIVE YOU A VERY FUNNY & MANIC BUT ALSO VERY SAD PER-FORM-MANCE! And in other news Good Morning Vietnam is a somewhat more balanced and delicate look at the Vietnam War than Full Metal Jacket (released in the same year) which was probably better than Good Morning but failed to capture any humanity or light humour. That gives this film its appeal as it makes you laugh and also consider the effects of war on civilians and the nature of censorship. Barry Levinson's direction and camerawork have occasional stumbles but is over showed by Williams' manic lead performance, improvising the radio dialogue (the best part of the film) and showing that he has a feel for the time and politics of the place and is surrounded by human characters of which Forest Whitaker (maybe he should be called Jungle Whitaker considering he's in Vietnam) is the best. Oddly 1987 seems to have been when Vietnam became seen in a lighter, more distant (and less reverent) tone since it saw the release of Good Morning Vietnam, Full Metal Jacket, Miss Saigon, Braddock: Missing in Action III, Forest Gump, most of the Rambo films and lately Tropic Thunder. Obviously their finally moving on and will make war films accessible to all nationalities, oh sorry, they've got Afghanistan for more war films (more cheap sentiment on the way) but from all of us at Radio Film goodnight.