Fiction doesn’t hold a candle to this particular slice of dog-nuts truth.
In November 1967, on little more than a dare, 26-year-old John “Chickie” Donohue impulsively decided to bring some Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz beers to the neighborhood buddies who were serving in Vietnam.
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| When the hell of war suddenly breaks out, Arthur (Russell Crowe, left) and Chickie (Zac Efron) are torn between witnessing and recording events, and running for safety. |
And now a thoroughly engaging film by director Peter Farrelly.
Given the larkish marketing art, and recalling the lowest-common-denominator oeuvre of the Farrelly brothers as a team — There’s Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber, The Heartbreak Kid — one is tempted to dismiss this project as a similarly dopey comedy. That would be a mistake; we must remember that Peter Farrelly, on his own, brought us the Academy Award-winning Green Book.
While this new film doesn’t approach that level of quality, it’s nonetheless entertaining, thoughtful and sneaky: the latter due to an initially light-hearted tone that suddenly turns deadly serious in the third act.
Zac Efron, with the High School Musical trilogy now a thoroughly distant memory, is spot-on as Chickie: introduced at loose ends, between hitches as a Merchant Marine. He’s living with his parents and younger sister Christine (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) in their upper Manhattan Inwood neighborhood, and doing little beyond hanging out with friends each evening at Doc Fiddler’s Saloon, where George “The Colonel” Lynch (Bill Murray, grizzled and irascible) holds court.
The Colonel and his patrons, dyed-in-the-wool supporters, are annoyed by protesters whose “antics” are broadcast all over the world; Chickie confronts it more directly, because Christine has joined the local anti-war brigade.
These early scenes — particularly Chickie’s argument with his sister — aren’t directed very well; there’s a strong sense that Efron and Serkis are “acting” and merely spouting lines, rather than sincerely inhabiting their characters.
Fortunately, matters subsequently improve, particularly when The Colonel — in a mild huff — growls, “I’d like to go over to Vietnam, track down all the boys in the neighborhood, and just give ’em a beer.”
“I could do that,” Chickie replies, a thoughtful look on his face.
That’s how it starts.
Chickie has obvious advantages; his Merchant Marine connections and earlier Marine Corps service grant him the necessary security clearances to work aboard a transport vessel heading to Vietnam. Even so, he looks ridiculous: dressed in a checked madras shirt and light-colored jeans — while everybody around him sports fatigues and other military gear — with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, weighted down by a case of beer.
(And yes; this is how the actual Chickie Donohue was attired.)
To say that he looks like he doesn’t belong — particularly once in Vietnam — is the worst of understatements … but, as it happens, his appearance has its advantages. Most people assume he’s a CIA spook, and Chickie does nothing to disabuse this notion.
Farrelly and his co-scripters — Brian Hayes Currie and Pete Jones — give this first act a larkish, Boys Own Adventure atmosphere that initially suits Chickie’s mad quest, when he sets out to find the first man on his list: Tom Collins (Archie Renaux). Qui Nhon, where the transport ship lands, is attractively exotic, and not yet impacted by the war.
Chickie even strikes up a casual friendship with a helpful traffic cop, who gets nicknamed “Oklahoma” (Kevin K. Tran).
Alas, this mildly whimsical tone doesn’t last. Chickie’s earlier military service in Japan and the Philippines didn’t prepare him for what he’s about to face, particularly when his search brings him to an ambush site near the North Vietnam border. Then things really turn serious when Chickie finds himself in the opening salvo of the January 1968 Tet Offensive.
Farrelly and his co-writers also make a point of the degree to which war details are “manipulated” by upper-echelon brass, who issue blatantly false reports as a means of portraying the “integrity” of this war to Americans back home. Chickie’s eyes are opened further — his naïveté shattered — when he comes under the protective wing of veteran war photographer Arthur Coates (Russell Crowe), who’s been around long enough to know on-the-ground truth.
Chickie has a telling line, late in the film: “The Great War, World War II … they were about saving the world,” Efron says, with persuasive melancholy. “This doesn’t feel like that.”
Coates (a fictitious character) is the sort of role that Crowe could play in his sleep, and to a degree he does just that. He certainly looks the part, in worn clothing and with multiple cameras slung over his shoulders, and he still radiates the intensity that he has brought to so many earlier parts.
But I can’t help thinking back to the somewhat similar role he played in 2000’s Proof of Life, where his character was much better fleshed out; he felt like a real guy. Arthur Coates is more of an archetype, designed to deliver this story’s underlying message.
Efron makes up for Crowe’s superficiality. Chickie undergoes a major emotional and attitudinal shift, as his time in Vietnam progresses; Efron sells this transition from good-natured party guy to horrified observer and participant.
Farrelly doesn’t linger on the carnage, once the Tet Offensive begins; we’ve seen it before in countless other films, and he includes just enough to depict the impact on innocents as well as soldiers.
But even as matters become more grim, we’re constantly reminded of this mad quest’s impossible odds: Some 500,000 soldiers and Marines are in Vietnam at this time, and Chickie’s friends are stationed with different units throughout the country. It’s truly a matter of trying to find four needles in a massive haystack, and one can’t help feeling that he has a guiding angel on his shoulder.
On top of which, he doesn’t even know if all of them are alive.
(The key details of this search, improbable as they seem, are absolutely authentic.)
I continue to marvel at the number of fresh stories that come out of history, even when one believes that a given topic — such as the Vietnam war — has been done to death. But when events are as wildly compelling, astonishing and unique as “Chickie” Donohue’s foolish escapade, they beg to be made into a film.
I suspect this one will resonate long after many other war films are forgotten.
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