'The Greatest Beer Run Ever' Review: A Benign Buzzkill [TIFF 2022]
There’s a moment in The Greatest Beer Run Ever where a journalist, played by Russell Crowe, ruthlessly states, “War is just one big crime scene.” While the line acts as a sobering metaphor for our protagonist that nullifies his naïveté, it’s also an example of how misguided the movie is. That’s not to say that war films can’t have humor, or that this particular war film is not funny, but rather that it lacks conviction. Considering that it’s based on an honest “true story”, that’s saying a lot.
Directed by Peter Farrelly, who returns behind the camera for the first time since Green Book, the film is based on a real stint by native New Yorker John “Chickie” Donahue. In 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, the former veteran took it upon himself to visit his neighbors overseas and bring them beer to boost their morale. Although it sounds like a nice gesture and although the soldiers could have just gotten beer from a local bar - as one character hilariously points out later on in the film - Chickie voluntarily sneaks behind enemy lines to make his delivery. The journey, while noble, is unbelievably stupid. Yet the promise that it all allegedly happened makes for some great entertainment thanks to Zac Efron.
Sporting a thick mustache and an even thicker Inwood accent, Zac Efron plays Donahue. While he may just look like a brolic Troy Bolton to some, Efron loses himself completely in the role. In fact, I’d go as far as to say he’s the best thing about the film. That’s because of how convincing he is in slowly showing the audience how the war changes Chickie. When we first meet him, he’s a laid back pro-war barfly. Even early on in his trip, he’s having fun in Vietnam: playing cards and actually drinking with the buddies he does find or - in one case - trying to surprise them by popping out from under a tarp. However, by the end of the film, after being faced with the horrors of war first-hand, he becomes unsure if war is as effective as the media has led him to believe his whole life.
That’s one theme the film should have explored more. Aside from a few exchanges with members of the press he meets (including one played by the aforementioned Crowe), the film stops just short of actually discussing the media’s role in war. Instead, it takes the backseat approach of leaving it up to the audience to decide for themselves if reporters glorify conflict. Even in an exchange at the end of the film with the owner of the bar Chickie frequents (played by Bill Murray), the two simply agree to disagree. It’s ultimately acknowledged that no war happens by accident, but the film holds an odd middleground in an attempt to absolve any party from wrongdoing - specifically in Vietnam.
From beginning to end, it feels like there’s too much of a focus on Chickie’s antics and all that he’s able to get away with in his time overseas, and not enough of a focus on what he learned or why he comes out on the other side a different person. Chickie literally goes from punching protesters to siding with them, but that personal growth feels like an afterthought. Not to say that Farrelly, who also co-wrote the film, does not care for Chickie’s overarching growth but, similar to how his last film featured a white man teaching a Black man how to eat fried chicken, I think he has a clear affinity for subverting audience expectations - even at the cost of abandoning what makes the most sense for the story.
The mixed focus on Chickie’s journey isn’t as bad as some of the film’s bizarre tonal shifts. In one sequence, he’s forced to dodge bullets immediately after (what he thinks is) a joyous reunion with a friend. In another, he sees someone thrown from a plane. Then, moments later, he’s on the ground asking for directions to his next destination as if nothing happened. Even the film’s climactic exchange with his friends at his hometown bar feels off. Efron delivers a solid monologue, but it’s received like a joke.
It’s almost ironic the way the film wants to talk about the atrocities of war because it can’t decide what it wants to be itself. Marketed as a comedy and shot like a drama, the film is just as much of an illusion as war. There’s nowhere near as much death, but by the end it feels like the film didn’t breathe as much life into Chickie’s story as it could have. The same way the audience is left to consider the effects of war on their own, they’re also left to wonder whether or not a better story existed at the bottom of this bottle.