The Greatest Beer Run Ever - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

The depiction of war in film is a fascinating and delicate subject, with takes on it as diverse on the spectrum as they can possibly be. From the humorous side, films like Mash and Good Morning, Vietnam to the more harrowing and sobering Saving Private Ryan and Come And See. The way these films are received by any audience depends on numerous factors, age, nationality, religious affiliation, as well as things like proximity to and familiarity with violence and war, including war crimes. The latest film from Director Peter Farrelly, the same man to bring us film’s like There’s Something About Mary and Dumb & Dumber, has brought us The Greatest Beer Run Ever, currently available to stream on Apple+. The new film starring Zac Efron covers the true events surrounding John Donohue as he delivers beer to his friends fighting in the Vietnam War. This movie comes at a precarious time in history, when an unprovoked war rages in Eastern Europe, one where civilian men, women and children are being displaced, wounded and even killed by a government trying to impose it’s will on the rest of the world. But I found it fascinating that this film eventually digs into the nuances of the media and journalists that are reporting on the events taking place and even how governments will stage and frame certain events in order to spin it’s narrative to a sometimes highly susceptible general public. Although this movie is certainly far from being The Greatest war film Ever, it is a perfectly decent dad movie and certainly one of the most reflective Beer Run films in quite some time.

SYNOPSIS - This out of the ordinary beer run starts with some text informing us we’re in a neighborhood called Inwood, up in northern Manhattan, New York City, 1967. We meet John “Chickie” Donohue (Zac Efron), wearing a generic green button down shirt and sporting a mustache straight out of Magnum, P.I., as he brings pitchers of beer back to his buddies at a local tavern. The film immediately tries to help establish what type of a character Chickie is through the dialogue with his friends making comments about him freeloading and “I can’t remember the last time Chickie paid for a beer.” The following morning his father busts into his bedroom to inform him that 11:30 a.m. mass already started, he needs to get out of bed and the dialogue keeps up with the rhetoric of insults directed at the character, this time it’s “lazy bum” and “sleeping your life away”. It’s always nice to have a screenplay dumbed down to make sure you don’t have to do any leg work or connect any dots, but that’s Peter Farrelly doing what he does and leading us by the hand. After a few more scenes that continue to highlight what a complete bum our main protagonist is, we finally get some sparks of life as Chickie’s sister Christine (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) comes to inform the Donohue family about a friend, a young man who was just killed over in Vietnam. A discussion ensues where the film begins to touch on the nuances of fighting for your country, doing your patriotic duty even if you don’t know the reasons for it, but also of people being mislead, being lied to by politicians and kids going off to fight and die for nothing. This is where the film is at it’s most intellectually provocative, but it drops the issue for a while and doesn’t get back to it until later in the second act.

Eventually, while sitting around talking to his buddies and the local bartender who they call The Colonel (Bill Murray), Chickie comes up with the idea to hitch a ride on a ship to Vietnam to bring a few of his friends from the neighborhood beer. The film stays lighthearted and I was originally put off a bit by the comedic aspects the film navigates through the first and into the second act. There are some genuinely funny portions of the film, I even found some of the dialogue and shenanigans that Donohue gets into to be pretty hilarious. This is not terribly surprising considering Farrelly knows his way around comedy in film better than many directors, depending of course on your brand of humor. But the portrayal of war as a fun time, guys hanging out and just a general feeling of chilling, party atmosphere, I began to take some issue with. Of course I couldn’t expect much more when considering where it’s coming from, at least in who wrote and directed the film, even with it being based on real events. But into the second act the film takes a hard right turn and delves into more of the harsh realities of war, even if it still stays a bit sugar coated. But after Chickie meets up with a journalist Arthur Coates (Russell Crowe) and sets off into Vietnam in search of his buddies, some of whom are right on the front lines of the war, more of the horrific and nightmarish aspects of hell on earth begin to come to the surface. While the film definitely doesn’t go too far into the terrors of war, it does at least touch on them and eventually gets back around to the fascinating, (I use this term loosely), aspects of war involving governments vs journalists, narrative spinning and what it takes for a government to get the general population to support it’s war effort, especially when young men in the prime of their lives are dying for the cause. Again, a topic that is all too relevant.

While The Greatest Beer Run Ever raises more of the sensitive questions than it actually tries to answer, and while there’s no perfect solution or correct answer behind many of these dilemmas, it at least touches on them. As the character arc of Chickie Donohue unfolds and he begins to look at things a bit differently than he did before, we the audience are forced to do the same, especially when we see things that are currently on the news happening in Russia and Ukraine. The screenplay and direction by Peter Farrelly are perfectly serviceable, and while many, many war stories do not have a feel good ending, of course this film predictably does, mostly. As far as the acting goes, Zac Efron does a decent job of portraying the likable boozer Chickie Donohue, but it’s Russell Crowe’s work as the journalist Arthur that really shines toward the end of the film. The soundtrack is fine, the cinematography was fairly standard as well, with very few significant shots of any note. This Beer Run also maintains a surprisingly good pace, with pretty tight editing all things considered, it comes in at just over the two hour mark, but there’s enough action, jokes and intrigue to keep most audiences engaged throughout it’s runtime. But in the end this movie is a perfectly fine, decent watch with a little to say but more to infer if you take some time to read between the lines.

SUMMARY - Just as Farrelly’s last film Green Book was a crowd pleaser that was a bit mixed in it’s messaging, his latest film is sure to appeal to an older demographic, even if it won’t make a run for Best Picture. While many critics have bashed the film, if you’re looking for something to watch with the parents or even just a decent film, there’s more good here than meets the eye if you tag along on The Greatest Beer Run Ever.