The Greatest Beer Run Ever

Attempting back to his historical period-piece roots after his Best Picture win for Green Book, filmmaker Peter Farrelly attempts to throw a well-intentioned beer party with The Greatest Beer Run Ever, laying on historical perspective, colorful characters, and a familiar statement on the deceptions of the Vietnam War. However, the film overstays its running time, and repeats too many of the same notes, and Farrelly and fellow co-writers try too hard to make a self-important prestige movie. The films screenplay is co-written by Farrelly, Brian Currie and Pete Jones that is based on the autobiography book of the same name by Joanna Molloy and John “Chickie” Donohue. The story is about a 26-year-old U.S. Marine corporate who goes on a journey to sneak Patz Beer into Vietnam for his fellow neighborhood buddies who are serving in combat. While the film has a remarkable story, the films execution is so arch and bland with its narrative repetition and awkward mix of comedy and unpleasant drama that attempts to explore the agonies of war.

Numerous times before, we have had comedies and satires that merged satire with war. The basic set-up sounds like it has the potential of possibly being a modern-day Mash, Three Kings, or even Good Morning Vietnam, which each of these films beat The Greatest Beer Run to the punch years ago. Yet those films from long ago were ahead of their time in that they had a perfect balance of humor, drama, and the absurdities and agonies of war. While The Greatest Beer Run Ever begins comedic with its slacker angst touches, it becomes way too self-serious where the drama feels forced and just a retread of every other Vietnam War movie that has come before. There is certainly a story of potential here. Could you imagine what the late Robert Altman or even a David O. Russell could do with such material? Running a beer run across the world during the heights of Vietnam has all the ingredients of being absurd and idiosyncratic. It has all the combative satire you would want on the failures of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity that just becomes bland and ordinary. Which is ironic, considering Farrelly was once a master of comedic romps when he collaborated with his brother Bobby Farrelly on many beloved comedic classics audiences still celebrate today with Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, and Kingpin.

On a character arc level, Farrelly’s protagonist in his latest film holds similarities to Oscar-winning Green Book, which focuses on a conservative, working-class New Yorker with a Boston accent who also goes on a long journey where his own beliefs and perceptions are alerted once he observes human injustices. Zac Efron plays the lead akin to Green Books Viggo Mortenson’s character is Chickie Donahue, a 26-year-old Merchant Marine who travels on vessel ships. While awaiting to be shipped out on the next expedition, Chickie spends most of his time as the local pub, drinking beer with his local buddies in the Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood. The pub is owned and operated by The Colonel (Bill Murray), a World War II veteran who is disgusted with the Vietnam War protestors and with the media showing soldiers in body bags. The Colonel dismisses the footage as off-putting and believes that World War II would have destabilized civilian support of the war during World War II.

Chickie also agrees with the Vietnam War and is at odds with his younger sister Christine (Ruby Ashbourne Serkiks), who joins the anti-war demonstrations. He tries to sway his sister by praising the war as a noble cause to prevent Communism from spreading around the world. Chickie even ends up getting into a fist fight with the protestors, which is quickly broken up by the police. After contemplating one night after a long night of beer drinking at the pub, Chickie proclaims that he wants to show the troops in Vietnam respect and appreciation by hitching a ride on a vessel ship and taking a loaded duffel bag filled with cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer to drink with each of the neighborhood troops.

After regretting these promises the next day, the whole neighborhood begins talking, and Chickie can’t backtrack on his promises. He ends up, in fact, hitching a ride on a cargo ship, arrives in Vietnam, and has a whole duffel bag filled with bear. Chickie ends up persuading the vessel’s commanding officer to get off the ship for 3 days after lying that he has to find his half-brother to deliver news of a death in the family. Chickie travels through Saigon and through other parts of Vietnam in search of his buddies. Of course, Chickie stumbles across bad luck after he’s mistaken as a CIA operative, carries on with the lie, and even ends up with a CIA operative throwing a suspected member of the Vietcong off a helicopter.

One of the major flaws of The Greatest Beer Run Ever Told is the tone of the film. While Farrelly showcases some very harrowing imagery of war, it feels like it belongs in another film. Had an edgier or more formally daring filmmaker crafted the film, it would have certainly been more effective. It also doesn’t help that all of Chickie’s friends that he meets on the journey are all scripted the same. Not only do they look and talk the same, nearly each exchange is the same as before. They all end with Chickie saying a quick hello and quickly leaving after giving them a can of beer. A more interesting film would have made each exchange or interlude feel more singular and memorable. Think of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon or P.T. Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, which are also period pieces of the protagonist encountering a different range of memorable supporting characters that leave an impact and afterthought throughout the course of the film. The end result of these meager interludes doesn’t leave much of a dramatic impact, the film just meanders.

It’s not to say all the characters are dull in the film; some of the supporting characters bring some life to the movie. Chickie encounters a traffic police officer (Kevin K. Tran) whom Chickie nicknames Oklahoma because he instantly talks about that movie when he talks with Chickie on the street. We also have a comedic subplot involving a military office who believes Chickie is in the CIA and believes he will put a good word in for them. Finally, we’re introduced to a group of reporters led by Arthur Coates (Russell Crowe), who serve as guides for Chickie to acknowledge the horrors of war.

Despite some sincerity in these particular exchanges between Crow and Tran, there’s a certain dryness infused in the film, a more heavy-handed messaging movie with a familiar arc we have seen many times before. Actor Zac Efron does his best to balance the drama and comedy, but he is far more at ease during the first hour, after which he appears to become restless after once again showcasing great comedic expressions and traits.

Perhaps newer generations will learn some history about the pointlessness and injustices of the Vietnam War. But the film, which is now being released during an era of wartime in Putin’s Russia, in which Russia is the imperial aggressor against Ukraine, could certainly serve as a manifestation of how history really is a set of patterns from our past that we should learn from. The Greatest Beer Run Ever holds genuine merit against war and savagery, but it never shakes things up and plays things way too safely. It’s a remarkable mission that’s sadly not as well told as it should have been.